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darn blue skies!
Well, we did our Milford Sound cruise, and what a bummer, the weather was beautiful. Blue skies, warm air, and no chop on the fjord as we cruised out to the Tasman Sea. Because of this we had to kayak around the coves at the edge of Milford Sound, and Britt decided it was necessary to go swimming as well. Terrible, huh?
Another complication of the distressingly gorgeous weather was that we were inspired to spend even more money and take the helicopter flight option back from Milford - we flew around cliffs and waterfalls and glaciers for 15 minutes, landed on a glacier on Mount Tutoko (Fiordland National Park's highest peak) and then flew around another valley and down to meet the bus on the landward-side of the Homer Tunnel. I have to say OMG IT WAS THE MOST INCREDIBLE THING EVER. In the whole history of incredible things. EVER. Yeah, life don't suck too bad.
I have uploaded a tiny fraction of the seventy billion pictures we took on the cruise and from the helicopter, as well as 23 seconds of video which is to the actual flight as the lightning is to the lightning bug but which is still DAMN COOL to a Milford Sound set on my Flickr page.
In the morning we take the bus to Dunedin, where we are renting a car so as to view the southeast coast at our leisure. Then we, um, are spending yet more money in yet another big splurge: we are going up to the national park around Mount Cook, the highest peak in New Zealand, and doing a three-day guided crossing of Ball Pass, an alpine pass near Mount Cook. It will be a crampons-and-ice-axe adventure, something I have no experience in, so am quite nervous and excited. The literature for the trek stresses that one must be in excellent shape for it; hopefully all the backpacking we've been doing has prepared us sufficiently!
After we return (if... :-) we drive to Christchurch, fly back to Auckland, spend one more night and day with our friends Doug and Anne in Devonport, and then it's the marathon flight back to the US, and bye-bye, NZ.
Another complication of the distressingly gorgeous weather was that we were inspired to spend even more money and take the helicopter flight option back from Milford - we flew around cliffs and waterfalls and glaciers for 15 minutes, landed on a glacier on Mount Tutoko (Fiordland National Park's highest peak) and then flew around another valley and down to meet the bus on the landward-side of the Homer Tunnel. I have to say OMG IT WAS THE MOST INCREDIBLE THING EVER. In the whole history of incredible things. EVER. Yeah, life don't suck too bad.
I have uploaded a tiny fraction of the seventy billion pictures we took on the cruise and from the helicopter, as well as 23 seconds of video which is to the actual flight as the lightning is to the lightning bug but which is still DAMN COOL to a Milford Sound set on my Flickr page.
In the morning we take the bus to Dunedin, where we are renting a car so as to view the southeast coast at our leisure. Then we, um, are spending yet more money in yet another big splurge: we are going up to the national park around Mount Cook, the highest peak in New Zealand, and doing a three-day guided crossing of Ball Pass, an alpine pass near Mount Cook. It will be a crampons-and-ice-axe adventure, something I have no experience in, so am quite nervous and excited. The literature for the trek stresses that one must be in excellent shape for it; hopefully all the backpacking we've been doing has prepared us sufficiently!
After we return (if... :-) we drive to Christchurch, fly back to Auckland, spend one more night and day with our friends Doug and Anne in Devonport, and then it's the marathon flight back to the US, and bye-bye, NZ.