By Julia
Wanaka, New Zealand
The past week was spent on a road trip around the southern coast of New Zealand's South Island. We experienced the remote hills of the Catlins, the steep, misty cliffs of Fiordland and Milford Sound, and action-packed Queenstown (the Jackson Hole of New Zealand). Tom and I have enjoyed the freedom of having our own car and living out of our tent...most of the time.
Unfortunately, the South Island has seen some heavy rainfall this summer - which makes for happy farmers, green scenery and cranky trampers (hikers). Early on in the week, Tom and I sat in a trailhead parking lot in the Catlins for 20 minutes debating whether or not we should go on with our planned hike despite the downpour. Traveler's guilt - or the nagging feeling that if you don't do everything you haven't done anything - is hard to drop. We ended up not hiking and spent the afternoon at the kooky Lost Gypsy Art Gallery instead. It turned out to be one of the highlights of the week!
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| Lost Gypsy Gallery - full of curio wonders |
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| Shelves of interactive toys made from junk line the gallery |
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| Native bird calls emanate from the hair dryer |
From the Catlins we headed to the west coast to Fjordland, one of the most popular tourist draws in New Zealand. It is home to Doubtful and Milford Sounds, and the Milford Track - one of the great walks of the world. Bird and sea life abound. Tom and I managed to escape most of the crowds and noisy vans by camping on our own.
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| Not a bad spot to pitch a tent |
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A Yellow-eyed penguin makes his way home in the rain |
We took the obligatory Milford Sound cruise in the pouring rain, which is more or less what you can expect in a temperate rainforest that averages over 7 meters of rain a year. I'm pretty sure about half of that fell the night we spent in Milford Sound. We decided to splurge for a room at the lodge for the night, although the weather was so bad they weren't allowing anyone to sleep in a tent anyway. As we lay warm and in dry in our bed that night, the downpour was so fierce that it physically shook the walls of our room.
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| Rain makes for beautiful waterfalls in Milford Sound |
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| Misty morning |
Surprisingly, the next morning the weather cleared up for a nice view of the Sound and it stayed clear long enough for a quick day-hike in the surrounding mountains. After the hike we headed on to Queenstown, famous for everything that will stoke your adrenalin. We opted out of jet-boating, bungee jumping, sky diving, and other activities that Queenstown is known for and instead cooked ourselves a nice dinner with a bottle of New Zealand wine. We toasted to finally getting out of the rain and sleeping in a bed as we start our next two-week farmstay in Wanaka.
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Tom catches a rare clear moment at the harbor in Milford |
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| A beautiful post-rainstorm day! |
Congratulations to Tom's sister Jess... now to be referred to as "Dr. Jess!"
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