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A day and a night in Milford Sounds
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Kev and Sej were on a shorter time budget than Gez and I, so we said goodbye in the early hours of the morning, as they were getting up to do a one day Milford Sound experience via coach the next day.
Gez and I took things at a slower pace, and decided to drive down, as we'd have more flexibility that way. We saw Martha, the German girl we'd met in Abel Tasman and given a lift to at the hostel. She was hedging for a lift but we didn't take the bait as we wanted a lazy day and she seemed in a hurry. Its hard to be relaxed when there's someone always wanting to get going, and at the end of the day it was our holiday, not our duty to drive her around.
We took a lazy route to Te Anau, near Milford, as there is only one backpackers at Milford Sounds and it was full up. Te Anau has not a lot there, so we did not a lot. The next day, we drove to Milford. The scenery along the route was fantastic - having the car came into its own then, as we were able to stop to take pictures whenever we wanted. We saw Kea, native parrots that are cheeky and love stripping plastic from cars. Gez and I had gone over to watch them being fed by other tourists, and when we returned to the car the kea followed us. One walked along the front of the bonnet as we sat in the front, then with a squalk flew onto the passenger wing mirror and looked in at me. It walked up and down the roof , clanging away with its claws, peeking down into our windows. Seeing some climbers preparing to climb the steep cliff near us, it flew off to join its friends, watching and waiting for food.
We arrived at Milford Sounds, ready for the cruise we had booked a couple of days earlier. As we waited, we had a coffee outside on a bench and got eaten alive by sand flies! They are small, nasty creatures that manage to infiltrate hiking boots to bite feet and somehow get under clothing and feast. The bite they leave is raised, and itches for days afterwards. The cruise was magical - we saw bottlenose dolphins leaping under the prow of the boat, and fur seals sunbathing on the rocks. We went sea kayaking (my first time!) and got chatting to some really interesting people. When we got back, we gave one of the girls from our cruise, a German girl called Silka, a lift back into Te Anau. She told us how that one year, when she had been travelling in Europe, an Israeli 40 year old man had started talking to her - he was also on her trip. He asked what nationality she was. When she told him, he said 'German! I can't talk to you! You're country is run by neo-nazis and they want to kill my people again! My family died in the second world war!' She explained that she wasn't personally responsible and shouldn't have to apologise for something she hadn't done. He berated her some more. She brushed the words off. At the end of their two hour trip, he said to her, 'do you fancy going for a coffee?' 'I'm a German, don't forget,' she told him as she walked off.
Gez was feeling generous and treated me to a small plane ride over Doubtful Sounds, the lesser visited, but very beautiful sister of Milford Sound. It was lovely, although Gez found the ongoing commentary very boring, he told me later. 'There's a lake..... and there's another mountain...' Being an ever polite Briton, Gez feigned interest, upon which the commentary continued. He had me fooled! I thought he was fascinated as he kept asking questions. The views were stunnning. It was a nice end to a nice visit in a nice place. More thumbnails ...
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