We spent New Year’s Eve and New Year’s
Day in Queenstown, adventure capital of NZ. Set on beautiful Lake Manupitu,
flanked by the Remarkable Mts., it’s become a tourist capital focused on skiing
in the winter and excursions to enjoy semi-dangerous outdoor sports during the
summer. It reminded me of a cross between Lake George and Aspen. It’s flooded
with backpackers. Many arrive on buses that run regular circuits for mostly
younger people traveling cheap. One’s called Magic Bus, but there are others.
There are also older tourists, of course, and it’s not a cheap town generally.
Steady floods of crowds surge in and out of several “booking centers” that
specialize in arranging spots for bungee jumping, jet boating, horseback riding
and all sorts of stuff you’d never imagine.
This was our first New Year’s Eve since 1973 outside of Washington, and the first since 1976 when we haven’t hosted a dinner with a regular circle of old friends at our home. Our friends JC&Patti had taken over hosting duties, and we called from Queenstown to be sure we were “still in the party.” Our own meal that evening was pizza at a local pub with our whole group. Nev took some of us pubbing later, and we mingled with crowds along the waterfront in the late evening twilight where bands played at opposite ends of a lovely park. It was a buoyant but very pleasant celebration. It culminated in a fireworks display that we hoped to watch from our apartment overlooking the lake. When I expressed disappointment at the 10 minute display, Jodie reminded me, “it’s a small country!”
New Year’s Day was devoted to
adventure pursuits on our own, as Nev and Nic had the day off. I opted for a
jet boat trip down the Shotover River.
Jodie
went on a tame but lovely horseback walk and in the afternoon we re-united to go
trout fishing
with a guide. This ended up including a hair-raising and aborted attempt to
cross the lake in a small launch while in the middle of a rising howler. We
retreated to upland Lake Moke where we fished for several hours. Hooked one,
landed none, but enjoyed stunning mountain scenery.
“One Climax After
Another”
Voted best description of the road from Queenstown to Milford Sound. We drove
pretty far into Fjordland National Park before
unpac
king
the trailer of bikes we’d picked up en route from Queenstown. Biggest surprise
for experienced bikers: the brake controls are reversed to accommodate the left
hand driving. Several front end wheelies later, after this became clear to all
of us, we set off on a 35 km bike ride through the Eglington and Hollyford
Valleys. It was raining off and on, which added to the fun, and the road wound
through forest to open dramatically into glacially carved valleys. Waterfalls
across the river cascaded in mist. We stopped in one field that was overrun with
lupen, beautiful non-native flowers reportedly introduced by a homesick English
farmwife, only to spread like the weed it is across this whole region. It may
not be natural to the area, but it’s beautiful to see along the roads and
especially in a dense field like we found here.
We climbed back on the bus for the last bit of road heading to the famous Homer
Tunnel bored through the Southern Alps to give road access to Milford Sound. The
rain increased as we drove and the mist floating off the mountains gave the many
waterfalls an ethereal, “Elven” quality that made it easy to understand how LOTR
was perfectly suited to these landscapes.
The Homer Tunnel is one of the heroic road building monuments here. It’s bored
right out of the raw rock; it runs for several kilometers with no lights and
only two lanes; and there’s no finishing inside – you’re just driving through a
mountain and you know it! Who dreamed up a project like this? How did they
engineer it, even with motorized earth moving equipment? Yet there it is, and we
emerged somewhat worse for the wear on the other side overlooking a dramatic
view down the far side of the range with 17 km of tight hairpin turns
serpentining down to the narrow coastal plain bordering the fjords of the west
coast.
It was raining so hard I didn’t dare to take out the camera. But we unloaded the
bikes again, and set off to bike the remaining portion of the road down to the
Sound. Jodie was in disbelief – pouring rain, slick pavement, steeply pitched
road, turns you had to practically stop dead to get around, and temperature in
the 40’s F. We hopped on, though, and wore our brake pads to nubbins coasting
through low hanging clouds, driving rain, briefly glimpsed vistas of mountain
and forest.
Milford Lodge is tucked in the forest near the end of the road into the Sound.
It was our first “backpackers” facility. The lodge itself was motel-like, with
rooms housing anywhere from a couple to 4-6 in bunk bed arrangements. Group
bathroom facilities. Community kitchen where guests can cook their own food, as
well as a bar and small menu of entrees like pizzas. Big lounge area abutting
the dining room where folks were rotating through all evening as they made and
consumed their meals. Nic cooked up a taco pie thingie to refuel us, and Jodie
initiated a massage party to try to ease all our aching muscles. We were all
soaked through and took turns with other guests who were equally wet using the
coin-op dryers. There was also a “drying room” with heaters and fans where
guests could hang out their stuff to air-dry. The combination of heat, damp and
sweat-drenched woolen clothing kept this off limits to all but the most
accomplished mouth breathers!
The following day we rose early to hook up with the kayak outfitter to get onto
Milford Sound.
Technically,
Milford is a fjord, since it was gouged by glaciers, and it looks like it.
Mountains drop straight into the sea. Forest grows right to the shoreline. There
are no beaches, just rocky coast line. We were kitted out with skirts, polypro
long underwear, rain slickers, and paddles. The kayaks were two person ocean
going affairs. After a brief introduction to essentials like paddling and
steering we were off in two groups.
The rain hadn’t let up overnight and the clouds were lying low on the
surrounding mountains. A steady wind was whipping up small swells. But the
feeling of being so low on the water, surrounded by such majesty, was profound.
As the wind increased, so did the swells. We made for the opposite shore to get
some shelter, and experienced real ocean kayaking! The water often lapped over
the kayaks, and we had to maintain a 45 degree approach to them to avoid
capsizing. Our four boats finally straggled across, and our guide called a
“scroggin break.” He had brought several Thermos’ full of hot beverage, along
with a huge bag of what we’d call trail mix. Boy, did that taste good! As we
were relaxing with the kayaks in raft formation, I noticed some flash of motion
off to the right. Suddenly the water erupted and a dolphin’s dorsal fin sliced
through the water not 2 feet from our raft! We were immediately surrounded by
flashing spinner dolphins as they worked their way down the coastline. They
stayed only a minute, but it was electric! The water was so clear you could see
them not only when they surfaced but also below as they raced through the water
just a meter or so below us.
