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

2004 so far

So we spent New Year's Eve in Christchurch, very far away from home. After all the excitement of the dolphins, we kept it lowkey during the day and wondered round in the sunshine. More botanical garden/sunbathing action (see last day in Buenos Aires!) Saw some lovely fireworks, ate a lovely dinner, drank some terrible champagne (Jacob's Creek: YAK!) had a great time. Family were recipients of slightly tipsy phonecalls as wake up calls. Ah well, I think we were coherent.

Drove down the east coast, camping one night just north of Dunedin. Went blue-penguin watching which was ace. All animal tourism here is very animal friendly so you, the human, have to accomodate their habits. (Apparently someone once asked the dolphin people 'when do we get to the cage?' and 'I can't swim, can I just hold on to the dolphin fins?' They resisted the temptation, on both occassions, to tip those concerned overboard.) So, penguins. Every night they come back to land to sleep and feed their young so you sit and wait for them to come in. No photos as their eyes are sensitive to the white light of the flashes. If you had asked me a week ago, I would say bird-watching would probably come below watching grass grow as a fun activity, but it's really (oddly) thrilling to watch these rare (cute) birds come home to sleep. They come in in 'rafts' - ie groups - and you see their heads bobbing up before they reach land - presumably so they don't bump their heads on the rocks...ok, maybe not. They then walk up the shore in little groups, stopping occasionally to dry off then running headlong home to bed in a sweet, penguin waddle sort of a way. They're not exactly unaware of the humans watching them avidly, but they just go about their business as if they were unaware.

Queenstown: a testosterone soaked town on the edge of the Fjordland. Everyone comes here to throw themselves off bridges and the like (AJ Hackett, bungy-jumping pioneer runs his highly-professional, very lucrative business out of here. We looked at a few very scared people attached to a rubber rope throwing themselves off a bridge and went off for a beer instead). We spent one night in town booking everything to keep us busy for the rest of the trip and then got, gratefully, out of there, heading out to the lovely Glenorchy 50km up the Dart River.

The Routeburn: Did a fantastic walk up to the Routeburn flats where we found the most beautiful campsite in the world. And, as everyone else here will tell you, Peter Jackson agreed, and filmed quite a lot of Lord of the Rings out here. I think Routeburn is where Liv Tyler and Frodo horseback ride over the river. Anyway, it's gorgeous. Dense forest, and snow-covered mountains in the background. Veritably alpine.

Just CHILLED big time in the sunshine and lit a campfire in the evening. Then walked up to the Harris Saddle and back again through glorious (tho' damp) scenery. Bit of a hike, but less strenous than some of the walking in Chile and Argentina. I can't describe it as well as this poem (Inversnaid - GM Hopkins) does:

THIS darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Back in Glenorchy, completely exhausted, had a very welcome beer. DB's draught. Extremely nice. On a par with the Monteith's we had our first night in Auckland - the bar man reccommended it for jet lag. Wise choice.

We were planning to kayak today but the weather had other plans so we're on enforced resting before heading to Milford Sound tomorrow. I plan to read my book and drink coffee. Lovely. xx