Pressypusses and Geographical Confusion!

24 and 25^th 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).  

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. 

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!

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.

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. 

Entry into Milford Sounds (nee Haven!)

Lady Bowen Waterfalls

The amazing Milford Sound

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. 

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. 

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 “8^th 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. 

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!