So we reached the little town of Te Anau, pronounced Tea Ah Now, meaning "cave of the swirling water current", in the early evening. The days are getting shorter and shorter here, sun rising aft er seven and setting around 5:30! Anyway we went on search for a hostel called Bob and Maxine's recommended to us by Lonely Planet.
As we drove up the gravel road to the front house we saw a man working on the taillight of his old land cruiser. We got out of the car and he struck up a conversation with us about checking in while he continues tweaking the lights and breaks all the while yelling out "miracle" to himself. After getting settled we went to the grocery store to buy for dinner and the next few days.
Yum, we made pasta with fresh veggies and ground pork, garlic bread, and salad. We even treated ourselves to maple walnut ice-cream which caused the biggest fight so far on our trip! It went something like this.
Morgan and I have different tastes in ice cream. We kinda settled on a couple of flavors. Maple walnut and cookies and cream. However deciding further was the problem. I chose maple walnut because it was half the size and we couldn't keep the ice cream long, Morgan wanted the cookies and cream because we got more for less money.
She saw it as wasting money, I saw it as wasting ice cream. Deadend! In the end we laughed at it watering it down to she's a vanilla lover and I'm a chocolate lover.
After dinner we read by the fire and I watched The Prestige.
The following day we stayed in the big cozy living room as the weather was pure shit. We watched movies, drank so much tea, read, and booked our Milford Sound ticket.
The bus picked us up at 8:00 the following morning right outside our hostel and we drove the hour and a half to the Milford Sound. Our tour guide's name was Tex and he allowed us to stop off at every little bend in the road where we gazed upon the mountains and lakes.
We were able to have our kayaks in the water at around ten. In our shared kayak Morgan and I packed a big lunch of sandwiches, pretzels, apples, oranges, and a cliff bar each. We were soon kayaking towards the sound, going over safety and a brief outline of the day.
Once we rounded a turn in the river we suddenly found ourselves in the glorious Milford Sound. We kayaked toward the left side of the sound and stopped occasionally to talk about the history, it's discovery, wildlife... All sorts of tid bits. The mountains soar above, the fresh water dumps into the ocean from up above, the water is so clear you can see the sea urchins clinging to rocks below, the air is crisp, and the sun shown down on all of it. After we stopped to eat our lunch we spotted two male seals hanging out on some rocks for a lazy afternoon! We spent the afternoon kayaking this beautiful place, the size of it an illusion. From one side to the other it took us an hour to kayak.
I want to try and give you guys an understanding of how vast this place was. First of all it's not actually a sound, which is carved from water. The Milford Sound was discovered and named before they knew what Fiords were. So Milford Sound is a fiord, it was carved out by a glacier. And what it left behind is a mountain range flooded with ocean. It holds the second highest mountain in the world that juts straight up from the ocean. Lady Bowen falls, the second highest in the sound, is as high as a 55 story building, only it looks half that compared to the monstrous mountains that surround it. We spotted a boulder on the top of a mountain that Tex has been waiting to fall and we guessed it was the size of a car, wait for it! It is the size of a football field!
Everything here is enormous and seriously majestic. We had the unforgettable opportunity to explore this place for six hours.
It was a day we will remember for always. A day that reminds us of this beautiful and magical world we live in. A day that grounds us if we choose to remember the feelings it provoked. A day that humbles and fills with power. A day that rejuvenates the spirit. We feel honored to have been given the opportunity to explore this place.
We drove back to Te Anau tired from the day. Back at the hostel we had a panic because I thought I'd lost the key. Once found the panic was replaced with jubilation. We drove that evening to Queenstown, so very excited to be arriving in a place that we could hopefully call home for the winter.
Wish us luck. It's time to find jobs and a place to live.
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