Queenstown to Milford Sound - three buses & a boat
Trip Start
Jan 30, 2007
1
24
641
Trip End
Dec 31, 2011
Loading Map
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
Queenstown,
New Zealand
Saturday, February 23, 2008
It is certainly a tourist town, with restaurants and bars, of souvenir shops and activity trips by canyoning, bungy-jumping, jet-boating - pretty much any adventure adrenalin activity that involves forking out a whole lot of money and coming away with a T-shirt and possibly a photo showing you free-fall with that hard-earning money blowing away in the wind.
Understandably I was happy just to be staying one night, a chance to recover from a long journey. And to begin a new one.
The trip to Milford Sound started well, and we were all safe and sound inside the coach as it began to rain, long streaks running down our tinted windows. For some reason by Te Anau the driver decided our bus couldn't continue down the road to Milford, as it wouldn't make it.
Now this is where my appreciation of Nature turned quickly to my sad observation of human nature. The busload of mainly English but some Americans, started to complain and bitch and moan and protest. Fair enough, they'd paid handsomely for the experience. What irked me the most was that during the remainder of the trip, all they could do was gripe and make snarky comments. Leaders of the pack where a British couple in front of me who sat bolt upright during the rest of the long trip, and only spoke to each other or to others on the bus with more complaints - there's no toilet on the bus, we should get a refund, it's not good enough, we need to stop to see these sights . . .
That same couple later stole the front seats from some other travellers, and when we stopped on the way back at the sights we'd missed, did they go out and explore and experience the wonders of the Milford Sound road? Did they walk along the boardwalk tracks to bridges over chasms? Did they pause to take photos of the high waterfalls cascading down from hidden valleys? Did they breath in the moist air infused with life and death? Did they feel insignificant next to the sheer grey walls?
No, they didn't. Instead they sat there, heads not resting on the headrests. Bolt upright they sat with arms folded. Muttering about the fine print of the ticket, the delay in other passengers getting on, the uncomfortable nature of the replacement bus, how the seats didn't recline, how it was unacceptable.
When we turned one corner to glance down to the valley below, half the bus gasped at the grandeur of it all. But not these ones. The older woman, bristling with pent up rage turned to a passenger across the aisle 'There's no toilets on the bus - it's just not good enough'.
There's a lesson here for everyone, and its not just you should avoid travel in your later years, when your bladder is unable to endure long bus journeys.
