We had long planned this trip, a night afloat on the Milford Sound. The scenery is awesome. The valley is a true fjord, carved by the ice and then filled by the sea. (Sounds are carved by rivers; apparently the first settlers were confused.) The sides are incredibly steep and tall, bare cliffs like walls creating a roofless corridor that winds around the stubborn cones of granite to reach the Tasman sea.
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Another lookout on the highway. The road parallels the route the Maori took, coming into this demanding environment in search of greenstone.
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Down he went, pulling at weeds and chasing fish.
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21/01/2008, Fjordland
The Milford Highway runs through the Fjordland World Park from Ta Anau to Milford Sound. The route itself is recognised in the World Heritage site listing, and is stunning. Along the way, we stopped at the Mirror Lakes, famous for their reflections of the surrounding mountains.
Boring moment. These are oxbow lakes formed by the meanders in the river, which then got detached from the main flow by the build up of silt. Because they are so small there is little wind disturbance, and the water is full of organic matter, making it dense and reflective.
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We stopped at a DOC site quite a long way into the woods. It was crowded, and we ended up picking up some rubbish (take those Tui bottles with you, guys!). The lake itself is very beautiful; this picture taken 20 minutes walk along a bush track from the site only hints at it.
It had a major drawback. Sandflies. This was Sarah's first encounter with these beasties, and they have become a running theme. At the time of writing this (5 days later), her legs have several red blotches which refuse to fade, and the flies are adding to the collection on a regular basis. We are experimenting with a wide variety of insecticides, and today succumbed (for the first time) to one containing the dreaded deet. We shall see,
The other big excitement at Lake Monowai was being awoken by an EARTHQUAKE! 0800, and the van starts shaking. In Britain, maybe a large dog, even a very brave stag. In America, the terror of a bear. But in New Zealand? Pip was insouciant in the face of Sarah's alarm. 'Nothing we can do,' she said, yawning.
It was so silent; all the earthquakes you normally hear about (if you come from the stability of Europe) are noisy affairs, the ground rumbling and crashing, which houses fall down. At the very least the china rattles. This time, there was no sound at all, just the juddering feeling in the van.
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Pip came here as a child. Now she's been to a lot of the places on this sign though not Hobart (nor indeed the South Pole, which is on here but you can't see it.)
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The same gallery has a small garden, as part of Invercargill's magnificent Queen's Park, devoted to the plants of the sub-Antarctic islands. These are remote, hostile environments, but are home to some extraordinary plants. The most important set are termed 'megaherbs', being large, tough and colourful. Indeed they are more colourful than many South Island natives, and the scientists are still puzzling out the evolutionary advantage.
They have extraordinary leaves, thick and tough. On this plant, the emergent leaves are covered in white hair, which abrades quickly, leaving these shiny, strong plates. On another plant, the leaves are corrugated or pleated. Within the folds, the air can be as much as 15 degrees Celsius warmer than the surrounding atmosphere.
We also found a cool farmer's market in Invercargill and stocked up on lamb and venison, as well as paua fritters which made for a very good dinner that night.
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Henry is a tuatara, a living dinosaur. He was born at the end of the 19th century! The Art Museum (which has an important display of these lizards which they breed to support survival programmes) ascribe his long-term grumpiness to a cancer tumour removed recently. A century in captivity might be a pretty good reason.
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On the road we met another quintessential NZ sight. Two dogs were working hard alongside a man in a tiny, elderly tractor, to take them home.
Tonight we are in a nice camp site near Invercargill. Tomorrow we are visiting Bluff and then heading north to be nearer Milford for our exciting overnight cruise on Monday. Hopefully we'll get all this loaded (as we're over a week behind) either tonight or tomorrow, as there'll be lots to come in the next few days.
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Except for this; it's the southernmost point of mainland New Zealand. South of here, except for islands, there's only Antarctica.
We played the Yazz track 'The Only Way is Up' loudly as we left the car park. Probably not original, but still appropriate.
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Slope Point is a lighthouse headland much like any other, rugged and windy.
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Across a narrow isthmus from Curio Bay is Porpoise Bay, closely guarded by these rocks at South Point which make the Bay itself relatively tranquil. This is a unique place: the only site where humans and dolphins (unfed, wild dolphins) live in close proximity.
The Hector's Dolphin, a small species which is critically endangered, has about 20 family groups here. We saw several dolphins swimming very close to people in the surf; there are lots of warnings about keeping away from the dolphins, but (like the penguins at Bushy Bay), no-one has told the dolphins themselves to stay away from humans.
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