Best day yet

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  Te Anau, New Zealand
Sunday, December 30, 2007

I always think of really good titles for these during the day, and then when I sit down to write about it, it's gone.  Isn't there a poem about that?  About writing the perfect word in the fog on the mirror before you forget?  Anyway...

We woke up early this morning to drive from Te Anau into Fiordlands National Park to the head of Milford Sound.  This was the awesomest decision ever, because we had the drive all to ourselves early in the morning, and totally avoided the rabid crowds of tourists.  It was peaceful and serene and very exciting.

Fiordlands and Milford Sound were, in a word, spectacular.  The mountains with sheer faces carved by glaciers.  In the Sound they dropped straight into the sea at a near vertical.  The depth of the sound plummets immediately to at least 150ft, with the deepest point at over 900 ft -- and the sound is only a quarter mile or so wide

Mitre Peak Cruise

.  We took a cruise out on the sound, which had views of amazing waterfalls, the aforementioned sheer faces, glaciers atop snow capped peaks, and some more seals.  No penguins though, unfortunately.

After the cruise, we took our time driving back along Milford Road, stopping to view some more of the awesome scenery.  At one stop we ran into the (in)famous kea -- a NZ native parrot; in fact the only alpine-dwelling parrot in the world.  (Because here the mountains are so close to the rainforest, you see.)  You might be thinking, "Cool! A parrot, right?"  I mean, that's what I was thinking.  But you would be mistaken.  The bird is a menace.  It likes to pick at anything rubber on cars -- the wiper blades, the gaskets sealing the doors, etc.  They're aggressive and obnoxious.  You get over the cuteness factor real quick.  At some point I'll post pictures here.

Anyway, after getting back to Te Anau (the first time we've spent two nights someplace - yahoo!!), we had a relaxing, laid back evening.  We did laundry in the very nice Top 10 facilities.  Then we went down to The Ranch for dinner for more lamb (I had the roast of the day, Travis had... some other cut they were calling a steak.  I finished it off with a sampling of Speights, a very popular [or at least well advertised] Kiwi ale.  [That would be "kiwi" as in "from New Zealand" not "kiwifruit"].).  We followed dinner up with some lazy souvenier (I don't think I'm spelling that right) shopping, a stop at the pharmacy (Travis is apparently allergic to something in this region - hopefully it'll ease up when we move north tomorrow), and a stroll along the banks of Lake Te Anau.

It was a lovely day.

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Milford Sound	Kea: A Menace	Kiwifruit	Koru
Smooching in the lupines	Michigan Pride!	"...and the Coriolis Force!"

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