April 6, 2012
Friday
We got a reasonable early start in the morning and arrived in Te Anau (which means something like water swirling in cave—a reference, some believe to the glow worm cave just across the lake from the city) in mid to late afternoon. The city sits on the shore of a huge and beautiful mountain lake, by the same name, and consists primarily of the lake shore drive and the central business district (CBD in NZ “code”). We took a slightly wrong turn into the town (routine for us, on occasion) and arrived at a naturalist center. We parked and decided to take a walk along
the lake front to unwind after our drive, observing the distant mountains, lovely lake-front hotels, airplane and helicopter flight services and other tourist travel arrangement center—plus quite a few restaurants and bars.
The hotel was just around the corner, as it turns out; so we soon got settled in our room and began looking for a place to get a cold beer and dinner. We found “the Moose” just around the corner (not that many corners in Te Anau); described in the travel brochures as a “regular Kiwi-style grub” so it seemed like a natural.
By the way, the trip from Dunedin surpassed all our expectations about the diversity and beauty of New Zealand’s environment. I should just write up some incredibly poetic expression about the loveliness of the countryside, but my best effort would still not do it justice. We saw
everything from rolling hills to broad plains, forests of stately pines, rivers and lakes, broad green pastures and hills made golden from autumn grass. We kept saying that nothing could exceed the sight we just saw when another more impressive one came into view. It makes me think that we should all live in New Zealand, just for the beauty of it! A “young traveler in a local breakfast shop recently put it best. “New Zealand,” he said, “is like a giant theme park where all the wonderful attractions and sights are put into one place.” I couldn’t say it any better than that!
Today’s drive to Milford Sound provided another example of the beauty and diversity of the countryside. We got started early to complete the 2 ½ hour drive for the 10:30am boat ride and drove north for about 30 minutes when the fog started to lift and we found ourselves embraced by mountains on three sides. And these were real mountains—probably 2500 to 3000 feet high or more! They seemed to literally hang over the road as we wove back and forth in a zig-zag pattern through the rising landscape. By the time we drove for a couple of hours, the mountains seemed to edge closer until we faced what literally seemed to be a horse-shoe shaped wall of cliffs in the front. As we got closer, we saw a little black hole in the face of the cliff—the Homer Tunnel, carved out during the Great Depression years to give automobile access to the Milford Sound area. It extended 1.2 Km through the mountainside and came out onto several miles of steeply-sloped switchback road leading into the Milford Sound area.
Apparently Milford Sound is really a “fiord” like in Scandinavia. Fiords are mountains carved
out by glaciers then filled by seawater. “Sounds” refer to the mouths of rivers, sunken by seismic activity (earthquakes) then filled in by seawater. According to the guide on our excursion boat, the water in the Milford sound is about 700 meters deep—so deep that the skipper was able to edge a full-hulled ship (about 200+ feet long) right up to the waterfalls, “seal” rocks and other attractions without any concern about running aground.
The excursion lasted 2 ½ hours and covered most of the main attractions: waterfalls, highest peaks, overhanging cliffs, etc. One of my favorites included the exit from the mouth of the sound; then a turn-around to see the opening from the Tasman Sea side. The whole thing looked like a simple fold in the cliffs facing the ocean. That may be the reason why Capt. James Cook entirely missed it during two or three exploration voyages up and down the western shore of New Zealand, the area now known as “Fiordland.”
We stopped several times during the drive back to Te Anau to check on several of the “designated scenic views” (more mountains, lakes, rivers, exotic plants and …did I mention mountains?). When we arrived in Te Anau, we discovered an unexpected Kiwi policy of serving alcohol during holidays ONLY when serving meal; so no stopping in for a quick beer before getting a shower and dinner. We managed to work through that situation and ordered some food with the beer which seemed ok with us.
Tomorrow we head to Queenstown and some new adventures.
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