Yawn yawn
Saw more dolphins! Stayed in another astonishingly photogenic campsite! Did some walking! Milford Sound this time. Incorrectly named (don't you know) as a sound is created by a river, whereas Milford is actually created by a glacier (yep, those again). In any case, it's gorgeous. Because it's created by a glacier the mountains rise extremely steeply out of the water, meaning a total lack of perspective. So, those nice waterfalls that look a few hundred metres away are actually 10 kilometres away. And you can't see the bottom of them either because the curvature of the earth is more pronounced down there. Very odd. Absolutely glorious weather which I was glad about. Although Milford is supposed to be stunning just after the rain (lots of waterfalls cascade down out of the forests on the mountainsides because there's very little soil to collect the water) it looked pretty damn fine at dawn in the rising sun from a kayak, let me tell you. And the pod of dolphins were just stunning - we were extremely lucky to see them. And there were loads of them - about 40. And they did the leaping out of water in threes and fours for our entertainment too. How kind. For boring technical reasons, there are no photos yet, but they will be forthcoming soon as. In the afternoon we went for a bit of a walk along the Milford trek, an iconic NZ walk which can take 4 days. We only did a few hours, but the environment was much lusher than the Routeburn but (apparently) less varied. Whatever - it would be a great walk to do as so much of the Fjordland National Park is unexplored by humans. They released moose there in the 60s and have no idea if they're still around. After thinking that the rare Kakapoa bird was extinct (a big deal in NZ where birds are the main indigenous non human life - only 2 indigenous mammals and they're bats) they found three in the 90s and put them straight in a breeding programme.
Hostel choice last night not so hot. The only 2 beds left were in a dorm with only men in it. Why it is that men snore so damn loudly? It really was most unpleasant - it was bad enough to continually wake themselves up - and me. It was so loud I thought one of the blokes was going to choke on his own snorage. My sister once stuck a pair of socks in the mouth of a friend of hers who was snoring once on a sleepover. I was sorely tempted. And the socks would not have been a clean pair! And 2 of the blokes were a bit of a catch too: whilst we cooked our dinner, they regaled us with stories of their trip which included deer-hunting ('we didn't catch much tho' - oh dear, poor them) and their thoughts on who makes the best chefs, men or women ('Of course men are great cooks. The best chefs in the world are all men.' Right, so nothing to do with prejudice in the workplace and lack of equal opportunities then? I stand corrected.) The other bloke (apart from Marv who is obviously lovely - and who really does not snore in the same league as our 2 deer-hunting friends) was a very frightened Scottish bloke. I don't think he'd ever slept in the same room as a woman before if the way he bolted out of the dorm at 7am this morning was anything to go by. Blimey - I'm not that scarey am I?
Much happier tonight - in lovely sleep Wanaka, north of Queenstown. In a double room with just me and Marv. Off to look at more glaciers tomorrow. Good-oh - not seen enough of 'em this trip.
xx
Saw more dolphins! Stayed in another astonishingly photogenic campsite! Did some walking! Milford Sound this time. Incorrectly named (don't you know) as a sound is created by a river, whereas Milford is actually created by a glacier (yep, those again). In any case, it's gorgeous. Because it's created by a glacier the mountains rise extremely steeply out of the water, meaning a total lack of perspective. So, those nice waterfalls that look a few hundred metres away are actually 10 kilometres away. And you can't see the bottom of them either because the curvature of the earth is more pronounced down there. Very odd. Absolutely glorious weather which I was glad about. Although Milford is supposed to be stunning just after the rain (lots of waterfalls cascade down out of the forests on the mountainsides because there's very little soil to collect the water) it looked pretty damn fine at dawn in the rising sun from a kayak, let me tell you. And the pod of dolphins were just stunning - we were extremely lucky to see them. And there were loads of them - about 40. And they did the leaping out of water in threes and fours for our entertainment too. How kind. For boring technical reasons, there are no photos yet, but they will be forthcoming soon as. In the afternoon we went for a bit of a walk along the Milford trek, an iconic NZ walk which can take 4 days. We only did a few hours, but the environment was much lusher than the Routeburn but (apparently) less varied. Whatever - it would be a great walk to do as so much of the Fjordland National Park is unexplored by humans. They released moose there in the 60s and have no idea if they're still around. After thinking that the rare Kakapoa bird was extinct (a big deal in NZ where birds are the main indigenous non human life - only 2 indigenous mammals and they're bats) they found three in the 90s and put them straight in a breeding programme.
Hostel choice last night not so hot. The only 2 beds left were in a dorm with only men in it. Why it is that men snore so damn loudly? It really was most unpleasant - it was bad enough to continually wake themselves up - and me. It was so loud I thought one of the blokes was going to choke on his own snorage. My sister once stuck a pair of socks in the mouth of a friend of hers who was snoring once on a sleepover. I was sorely tempted. And the socks would not have been a clean pair! And 2 of the blokes were a bit of a catch too: whilst we cooked our dinner, they regaled us with stories of their trip which included deer-hunting ('we didn't catch much tho' - oh dear, poor them) and their thoughts on who makes the best chefs, men or women ('Of course men are great cooks. The best chefs in the world are all men.' Right, so nothing to do with prejudice in the workplace and lack of equal opportunities then? I stand corrected.) The other bloke (apart from Marv who is obviously lovely - and who really does not snore in the same league as our 2 deer-hunting friends) was a very frightened Scottish bloke. I don't think he'd ever slept in the same room as a woman before if the way he bolted out of the dorm at 7am this morning was anything to go by. Blimey - I'm not that scarey am I?
Much happier tonight - in lovely sleep Wanaka, north of Queenstown. In a double room with just me and Marv. Off to look at more glaciers tomorrow. Good-oh - not seen enough of 'em this trip.
xx
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