24 and 25th
Feb Southland to Fiordland
One
of the nice aspects of travelling around a country for the first time are the
things that you come across by accident.
When looking for a coffee and pee stop we happened to arrive in the tiny
hamlet of Kingston about 2 minutes before the local steam train pulled in
beside us! Amazing beasty. Think I might have seen a ginger headed train driver
at the helm (sorry, in joke about my paternal grandfather who was a train
driver).
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| Kingston Flyer |
Parents
have many ways of amusing bored children and one of Daddy (Brian) Sherlock’s
was to drive at James Bond speeds around twisty roads with steep drops on
either or preferably both, sides. All the time he would say “Look Mags there’s a pressypuss” (i.e. precipice). My brother’s thought this hilarious and it no
doubt explains my fear of heights!
Two of the
roads travelled in the past couple of days brought back these memories. The
road between Wanaka and Queenstown features a very steep bit that is allegedly the
highest metal road in New Zealand. Going up is bearable but the steep descent
made me shut my eyes several times – luckily Mike was driving! Strangely this
stretch of road was full of cyclists, all presumably out to show off their
macho credentials.
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| Crown Pass (we think) |
Today’s joy
was the final stretch of road up to Milford Sound which was full of tight
corners and deep chasms. If the scenery hadn’t been so fantastic my eyes would
have been closed for most of this stretch! This road also features the most
amazing tunnel. At 1.2km the Homer tunnel took 20 years to complete, not
surprising when you see the mountain they had to get through and the fact that
they did it all by hand when the tunnel was started in the 1930’s. It’s a one
way tunnel with traffic lights at each end. Not well lit and pristine on the inside either - evidence of the hacking that formed the tunnel and quite dark and gloomy! Never again can we complain that
traffic lights are slow- the ones at the tunnel take 15 minutes to change!
Surreal scene when we were waiting to enter – the passenger on the motorbike in
front of us dug into her backpack and got out her I Pad. Who says that you can’t
communicate from anywhere!
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| Traffic lights at entry and exit to Homer Tunnel |
The trip to
Milford Sound was billed by all the tourist guides as a “must do” so we set off
from our overnight staging post in Te Anau (incidentally this is on an even
larger lake than Wanaka), in slight trepidation in case the day didn’t live up
to expectations. We needn’t have worried! The scenery on the 120 km drive was
fantastic, let alone the main event. This is an understandably popular tourist
attraction so the road was unusually crowded, particularly with coaches.
Helpful though as it showed us where to stop on the journey to take photos! We
did wonder quite what the UK police would think of a bus casually stopping in
the middle of a one way bridge crossing to let its passengers take photos!
A highlight
en route was the “Mirror Lake”. As the name suggests this calm stretch of water
perfectly reflects the mountains that tower above it. Very Lord of the Rings
(LOTR) as is much of the scenery around here. We're close to several of the film locations but they are pretty inaccessible except by air.
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| Views of mountains from the Mirror Lake |
Having been
away from the UK for nearly a month, we are finding it hard to know what day it
is, let alone the date so we were increasingly confused today as we approached
what we thought was an NZ fiord only to find that apparently we were in Wales!
Having crossed the River Cleddau we then got to Milford Sound, originally known
as Milford Haven which, as everyone knows, is just across the water from Dad’s
house! We went on a very interesting boat trip through the Fiord (it was wrongly named as a “sound”, it is actually a Fiord having been created from a
glacier) to the Tasman sea. We gazed in awe at the wonderful juxtaposition of
huge granite and quartz mountains, the very deep (400metres), 15 km long lake
and the incredible forestation that somehow survives by clinging onto sheer
rock faces. All formed by a glacier part of which is expected to be gone by
2020.
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| Entry into Milford Sounds (nee Haven!) |
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| Lady Bowen Waterfalls |
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The amazing Milford Sound
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Geographic
confusion increased as we passed Lady Bowen falls and Mount Pembroke (the
tallest mountain in this area)! (For those not familiar with Wales, these are
all Welsh names and places). The fun
continued as behind us on the boat were three very vocal Welsh ladies, all
rabbiting away in the Celtic tongue. Now the thing about the Welsh language is
that it uses English words and phrases every so often and it was very difficult
not to laugh when suddenly one of the trio exclaimed in a loud voice “a blond
bombshell, now there was a big ask”.
The
Stirling (perhaps a link to another Celtic ancestor) waterfalls were impressive
in itself but from afar the water takes on the colours of a rainbow so it looks
even more amazing.
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| Stirling Waterfall - coloured like a rainbow |
Unusually
Milford is in the midst of a drought i.e. no rain for 10 days! Normally it’s
very wet, averaging 6.7 metres (264 inches) of rain each year. Sensibly this
water is used to supply both power and water locally.
NZ is
pretty serious about conservation and there are numerous examples of this
wherever we go. The fur seals basking on the rocks by the lake were one example
of how a previously hunted species is now allowed to live naturally.
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| Young fur seals basking in the sunshine, gathering energy before the evening food hunt |
Rudyard
Kipling wasn’t far off when he called this place the “8th wonder of
the world”. It’s stunningly beautiful and shows just how clever nature can be
at adapting to circumstance.
One further
bit of news – there was an ancestor of a Hobbit on the boat! Carefully disguised
but there was no mistaking the curly hair and beard and the furry feet! This is the closest we’ve got to one of the furry
fellows.
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| Modern day Hobbit |
Rounded the
day off with delicious blue cod and chips and green lipped mussels on rice from
a take away van. Came highly recommended and we understand why!
