Of the 25+ hours of driving we did over the course of the week, I would say about 20 of them were in/through/around/underneath/over (insert preposition of your choice) vast chains of snow-hooded mountains. I felt like we were disturbing some sacred presence just by steering a car. The roads were clear, however, albeit absurdly curvy, and we only experienced about ten kilometers of snow-drenched avalanche zones.
When Sara and I were researching places to see in New Zealand before the trip, we stumbled upon a website advertising the Haast Blue Pools--a quiet glacial inlet (yes, despite the plurality of its name there was, in fact, only one pool) carved into the side of a mountain. The website called it one of the 100 Must-See Locations for Kiwis. Sara, bless her heart, thought "Kiwis" referred to the birds, not the people, and was perplexed to imagine a gaggle of kiwis flocking to the major tourist destinations of the South Island. "They don't have arms," Sara said, "they couldn't even take pictures!" Naturally, the poor wingless birds who could never become photographers became an immediate joke, and though no kiwis were spotted at/around/in/over (insert preposition of your choice) the Blue Pools or the woods through which the trail wound, it was still a stop worthy of its reputation.
Our destination for the day was the gorgeous tourist city of Queenstown, situated on the banks of Lake Wakatipu and skirted on three sides by the Southern Alps. In terms of scenery, I have witnessed very few things in my life that can compare to the craggy mountainsides that spilled into water. The flavor of the city itself, though (if you could call it a city) left a bit to be desired. There were too many souvenir shops and overpriced gourmet pizza restaurants, and way too many tourists. I know, I know: what can you expect from the adventure capital of New Zealand where people fork over limbs and vital organs for a jetboat ride or the chance to free-fall for 45 seconds after leaping from a moving aircraft? I was glad we spent the time there that we did--if nothing else, the ice cream was amazing--but I was ready to move on to the Fiordlands (those crazy Kiwis spell it with an I) the next morning.
From Queenstown we took a short drive to Lake Te Anau at the entrance to the Fiordlands. It was a tiny town and we got there several hours before our hostel's check-in time, so we got hot chocolate (the weather was miserable) and wandered through the wind and rain, past pharmacies and supermarkets and cafes and souvenir shops. There were advertisements for the film Up which was playing at Fiordland Cinema, but when we went to check the times we discovered that they're not actually showing Up anymore. We weren't interested in seeing animated guinea pigs shoot things with machine guns, so we wandered some more until we could check in to our room.
This isn't my most dramatic picture of boats on Milford Sound, but it's one of my favorites. I think I preferred that it was cold and rainy and misty. The inclement weather gave the fjord a mystery and magic that would have been missing in the sun. Our two-hour cruise was incredible--hundreds of waterfalls, some so small that they could have been single spools of white thread rolling down the mountainside. The captain said that the longest waterfall flows for over 560 meters, which is about 1,740 feet! We passed a colony of fur seals sprawled across an outcropping of rocks, and I saw a penguin (from a distance) waddle its way from the water's edge to its nest in the low foliage. Just like the Haast Beach sunset venture, every part of me was numb when we returned to the wharf, but it was definitely worth the cold. The Sound was stunning.
I'm including this just to give all you Americans a taste of what it's like to drive on the wrong side of the road (although now whenever I see an American movie or tv show and someone is driving, I get really confused about why they're in the right lane. I smell some major problems with me returning north. This morning on my way to the market I was envisioning myself pulling left out of my driveway, and for several moments I had no idea which lane I was supposed to be in).
So after leaving Lake Te Anau (this picture was actually taken heading toward the lake, so imagine the opposite), we drove eight long hours along the eastern coast(ish) back up to Christchurch. We stopped at several lakes along the way, mainly because we couldn't believe that water this color could actually exist in nature. This is precisely how it looked, though. Glacial mountain water. I was wearing a shirt that exact color, so pictures of me in front of this lake look hilarious. I found this specific shot reminiscent of Yosemite, aside from the hue of the water. It made me homesick for a life I haven't known in five years.
We had several more adventures before our 4:00 wake-up to head to the airport, but they were mostly adventures that didn't require the use of a camera. I'll end on this note: New Zealand was incredible. Big, small, wet, green, white, open, humbling, revitalizing, exhausting. I'm back "home" now, and in exactly three weeks from today I will be at the real one: my Home. It's as if time never seems to care what it does.
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