Sort of. Nothing’s really free. We are in Queenstown, having been stopped by the allure of free wireless connection at one of the hostels. Of course, what we didn’t figure was that the place would be more expensive than we thought, there is no parking, and we have to use the computer in the lounge, where we get to listen to some American (of course) idiot talk to his friend back home about his various stoner exploits and bitchin’ stuff he’s gonna do here. Sigh.
Anyway, after Dunedin, we went down along the southern scenic route through the Catlins, the southern area of the island. We stayed a night in Owaka in a small place that was occupied by an entire one other person. He was a nice, pretty friendly guy from Belgium who was working and hitchhiking his way around NZ for a year. He had some good stories about rides he had caught, and amused us with his frustration at the number of German tourists. They are the greatest population of tourists we’ve run into, and he even goes so far as to ask places if there are any Germans staying there before he books a night.
After that, we went along the coast, stopping at some of the sights, including the southernmost point of the south island. It was pretty cool, a long walk across a sheep field to what might be the furthest south either of us ever get. There was a signpost there telling the distance to the equator one way, and the south pole the other way. We also stopped at the Niagra Falls of NZ. I only hope the pictures we took capture its grandeur. Then a night in Invercargill where we went for a beer at the Frog ‘n’ Firkin. It was dominated, like much of the culture here, with music and videos from the 80’s, mostly from the US. Weird.
Then we went on to the Fiordlands. We were going to stay in Te Anau, but the place we wanted was chock-a-block full. So we ended up at a place in Manapouri. It was pretty basic and cheap, and we had a little cabin room, but it felt a bit like camping. And the guy running it was very nice, he booked us on a tour of Doubtful Sound. We had a day before the cruise, so we drove up to Milford. The drive itself is beautiful, with the mountains and forests all around. Closer to Milford we stopped to do one of the short trails that leaves from the side of the road. Unfortunately, the Keas had other ideas. There were three of them, and two were making a meal out of a parked car’s rubber weather stripping and windsheild wipers. The third jumped up on our roof, then climbed down onto the hood. He wasn’t aggresive, really, but he sure wasn’t scared of us. He started climbing on Sarah’s hand, then bit her finger. Her knuckle, actually. She’s fine now. Then as other cars would pull up, the birds would go inspect them to see if they were tasty.
The stop was right before the Homer Tunnel, which is a steep, unlit tunnel that descends at a steep grade down through a mountain. Pretty Cool. Then down a steep, winding road to the town of Milford, which isn’t a town at all. It’s a hotel, and bar/restaurant/info center, and a bay which launches the boats that tour the Sound, which isn’t a sound at all, but actually a fiord. They were mistakenly named by the first European explorers who were mostly British and Welsh and didn’t know what a fiord was.
The next day we did our tour of Doubtful Sound. The company was small, just a husband and wife team, but they only took a max of 20 people, which was preferrable to the other company that took somewhere around 150 people. We got in a little boat and went speeding across Lake Manapouri. When we reached the other shore, he got the bus, and took us down into the steep tunnel leading to the underground power station. It was really cool, like something out of James Bond, but we only got to see it from the viewing platform, no touring around. After that, we went across Wilmot Pass to get on a slightly larger boat that motored across Doubtful Sound to the edge of the Tasman Sea. Then we took our time coming back, seeing the waterfalls, shags, seals, and crested penguins. Sarah pointed out that they were the third type of penguin we have seen in the wild. Very cool. It was a great trip, and it was also very long. We spent most of the nine hour day bouncing around on little boats. We decided to skip the tour of Milford Sound, which is much smaller, and start heading north again.
So we drove just a little bit today, stopping here in Queenstown to rest up a bit and do some internetting. Then we head out tomrrow for the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers. We instantly decided we we don’t like Queenstown. It seems the typical tourist trap town. It’s billed as the “adventure capital of NZ”, and it seems that people are buying into it. I don’t think there’s anything here that you can’t do somewhere else, probably for cheaper. And for such a small town, it’s really crowded. Oh well, at least we’re just staying the night.