Te Anau and Milford Sound
I slept at the back of the Stray bus for the majority of the trip to Te Anau. When I woke up I felt really queasy from my force 7 hangover (Well, I couldn't not get hammered could I? It was my last night in Queenstown!) which felt all the worse for the sitting at the back of the coach and being full of phlegmy nastyness. I was sick at the mid-morning toilet stop and when we got to Te Anau (the gateway to Milford Sound). Luckily, we were too late into town (STRAY - Off the beaten timetable) and the bus needed snow chains so we couldn't make it to Milford Sound that day for the planned cruise around Mitre Peak.
I decided to de-tox at the lake-side hostel for a few days, it felt good knowing now I wasn't in Queenstown, I didn't have to go 'Hardcore' anymore. Obviously I didn't 'have to' go Hardcore in the first place but when in Rome... I spent the night drinking tea and playing chess with a bloke called Phil (from the Stray bus today who was staying at the Underground in Perth when I was there) while we compared what we thought happened in The Matrix.
Feeling fresh from waking up without a hangover, we got on the bus and went to Milford Sound. Milford Sound is an inlet from the sea which has huge steep mountains either side. Its one of the most dramatic places I've ever been. We drove for a couple of hours through the mountains which got more and more snow covered the higher we got.
We were incredibly lucky with the weather. Everyone who'd told us about Milford had said 'It will Rain'. It gets the highest amount of rainfall in NZ (which is saying something) as it rains something like 300 days a year which deposits around 9 meters of water. We had crystal clear blue skies :)
It was bloody cold and the wind chill almost froze my eyeballs but I didn't care, it was amazing.
When it got too cold we had free tea and coffee below deck. We got distracted from the scenery for a while when one of the girls bought a Japanese Pot Noodle type thing on the boat. I knew from spending time in Tokyo that the Japanese make tons of different types of pot noodle. The flavour she had looked like pure soy sauce, it also had a really bitter after taste. We all tried some, it had a really strange flavour, it was an almost black coffee-like bitterness combined with the usual Mono Sodium Glutamate type meat flavouring. I asked her where she got the hot water from, she pointed to the free tea and coffee stand. Somebody else pointed to the machine on the other side of the kitchenette and said "But isn't that the boiling water dispenser?"
While we were up on deck later on, the driver backed us into a waterfall which was fun, if a bit cold.
It was breathtaking. The more time I spend here, the more I think New Zealand's South Island is the most beautiful place in the world. I feel trapped by my average grip on the English language that I can't think of more words to describe the awesome vistas that sit quietly here. I just don't have the words to describe it.
This picture is to say thanks to Aunty Jean across the road who gave me some birthday money to 'Buy an Ice Cream' with. Thanks very much. Ice cream in the coldest bloody place on Earth short of Antarctica.
