Milford Sound and the Farm
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Tuatapere,
New Zealand
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
I was back on the bus today to begin my trip into the deep south of New Zealand and the furthest south that I will go on this trip. There were however one or two things to do en route to that destination, so today I would be visiting Milford Sound. The trip did not begin well as I had a vibrating seat on the bus which made me constantly need the toilet but that was really only a minor thing to worry about, though an uncomfortable minor thing. Our journey to from Te Anau where we had purchased (or in my case been given free of charge because of my Stray Freebie vouchers) our tickets for the sound was accompanied by a particularly cheesy voiceover tape that told us about the history of the area and the mountains. It was actually quite interesting but it was hard to listen to with it being done in such a corney and falsely bright manner. The scenery as we entered the beginning of the road to Milford went from spectacular to sublime, and the road itself wound along some great ledges at times, though they were also a little hair-raising.
We made two quick stos on our way down the road, one to view the mirror lakes, which are an elogated version of Lake Matheson, though without so many ducks so the reflection was clearer, and the other was at the Chasm waterfall, about two thirds of the way down the road, which is virtually underground as it can only be seen through windowlike holes in the rock that it flows through. It was an impressive fall, but more noteworthy to me were the massive logs that were strewn about the top of the chasm and caught in the latticed rocks. It must have been an awesome flow of water that brought the trunks to that choke point.
Once we left the chasm walk we entered the avalanche zone where Mike (our cheesy audio guide) informed us that avalanches could occur at any time, and so we must not stop on this section of road. It was easy to believe as there were massive heaps of snow on either side of the road, probably from the last clearance that was done - only two days before our trip. They were huge piles, and I shudder to think at getting caught in the drift, but I do not think that anyone did.
We arrived at the wharf in the sound just in time for the cruise and passed Donald Sutherland's hotel which has housed traveller's to the Sound for over 100 years. (This Sutherland was an ex-SAS man from Scotland who settled in the sound as a hermit before becoming a hotelier when visitor numbers began to rise - not the Hollywood actor.)
The weather for the cruise was overcast which leant a moody feel to the Fjord (as that is the accurate geographical term for Milford Sound) and it made for some great sights as well as photos, but the wind was icy as it gusted around the aptly named Windy Point, which is the point at which the Fjord gets significantly narrower, though to call it a bottleneck would be too extreme. As we reached the end of the sound the clouds broke and we were presented with a sparkling Tasman Sea and sunshine as we swung out of the sound to turn and make a return journey. The way back was much the same as the way back out and for me the cruise was about twenty minutes too long, but that is the length of Milford and not the fault of the operators. Besides, I just hate standing still for any length of time. There were some very interesting fault linesand beautiful waterfalls to observe on the cruise and we got a better look at those on the return journey, as well as seeing some fur seals. Overall I was glad that Ihad done it, especially as it had been free, but I was definately ready to get off the boat at the end of the trip.When we were all back on board the coach Karlyn, our driver, decided to give is a whistlestop drving tour of the Milford settlement. It took about two minutes, and as not very comfortable with my vibrating seat thrown into the bargain. I slept all the way back to Te Anau, but there is onyl one road in and out of the sound, so I had not missed much. I also slept most of the way to Tuatapere, which was our overnight stop and the sausage capital of New Zealand.
The day was not finished on arrival though, as I had booked onto a farm tour in the evening in order to shear a sheep. Don't ask why I wanted to do it, because I am not entirely sure. On arrival at the farm we were invited to go and feed the orphan lambs, which were less than a week old and who were in for a shock the next day as they were scheduled to get the snip - both tail and boy parts. I felt sorry for them as they were unbelieveably cute and tottered around us bleating for milk, even though they pulled away from the teat as they tried to suck on it. Well, they were brand new. It was quite depressing to realise that they would be on a dinner plate by December, but the experience solidified my personal rule not to eat baby things. Next up was watching the sheepdogs at work, and it was quite amazing to see how the dog herded the sheep easily over to the farmer and into the shed, and amusing to see the sheep literally trying to jump over each other in order to get away from the dog. After seperating out the sheared and the woolly sheep we were up to the shearing part of the evening. It turned out that only five of us actually wanted to try this so it did not take long. When it was my turn I discovered that it is actually quite difficult to keep the blade level while you are working the clippers, as they vibrate quite a lot, so I was a little afraid of cutting the sheep with them. I was relieved when I did not do so, as it wriggled quite a bit during the process, then I handed the shears back to the professionals and stood back while they finished off the job. Even after two minutes work my hands were aching badly from the vibrations of the clippers. i am not sure how people do this all day.
Afterwards we had a sausage sizzle meal, and I later dicovered that the 'sausages' were made from lamb, which kind of wrecked my personal rule. However, it would have been very rude to refuse the meal that had been prepared for us, so I will just have to make a more concerted effort in the future. I did manage to stop from buying the lambskin gloves though. Then it was back to the hostel and to bed, because we would be up at stupid o'clock (my old friend) to catch the ferry across the Foveaux straight for a day on Stewart Island.
