As always, Mom was right. In my first post about this trip, I mentioned that my mother thought New Zealand the most beautiful place she’d ever visited. After spending the last two days at the southern end of the South Island, I must agree.
To get from Blenheim to Te Anau, we flew over the Southern Alps, the range running roughly north-south on the South Island. The views out the window were glorious.
Our base here was the small town of Te Anau (Place of the Swirling Waters, in Māori).
Known as the gateway to the majestic Fiordland National Park, Te Anau fronts a large lake by the same name. Tauck put us up in the Distinction hotel, a very nice place despite not having air conditioning. (AC normally isn’t needed here, but temps have been running 10-15 degrees above “normal,” which of course bears little relation to the “new normal.”)
From my hotel room I can look out at small boatplanes coming and going, fishermen straight out of central casting (sorry), and jet skiers buzzing like so many black sand flies (more on those insidious bugs momentarily).
Less than a half hour from here by boat there is a cave system famous for its glow worms. To enter the cave you have to negotiate a short passage with a ceiling perhaps one meter high. The cave then opens up and the metal grate walking path takes you perhaps 200 meters further inside, where you board a boat, the guide turns out the lights, and voila, you appear to be looking at a star-splashed night sky. After a ten-minute ride you retrace your steps to daylight.
Tickets for the tour can be purchased at a RealNZ store that’s a five-minute walk up the road from the hotel. The cost is $119 NZ (about $80 US). Included in the tour are an interesting film talk about the glow worms’ life cycle – they’re actually fly maggots, not worms, and it gets ickier (to use the scientific term) from there. The feed mostly on black sand flies, performing a vital public service – the flies swarm and bite and the bites itch; in fact, Captain Cook, who came to New Zealand in 1773, called them “the most mischievous animal” he’d ever encountered.
Their prize prey, however, is moths, which they eat by entering through the eyeball, injecting something that liquefies the moth’s insides, and happily consuming the resulting stew. If you’re not sufficiently grossed out, the sticky threads they dangle to snare their prey are a combination of vomit and excrement. (The caves also are home to giant eels. We were fortunate to see one, which was perhaps 4 feet long and 12 inches around, but photos are forbidden in the cave so you’ll just have to google them.)
Moving from the hellish to the heavenly, we spent today in spectacular Fiordland National Park, which is larger than Yellowstone and Yosemite combined.
Roughly two hours by bus from Te Anau lies Milford Sound (actually a fjord, but if flies can be worms, fjords can be sounds). During the drive it rained steadily, and ribbons and braids of mist hovered above the ground and shrouded the mountains.
Milford Sound extends 10 miles inland from the Tasman Sea. It’s surrounded by steep mountains bearing evidence of recent avalanches and “tree slides” (trees cling precariously to the sheer mountainsides and if a tree falls in this forest you hear it: it often knocks several hundred other trees to the ground on its fall to the water below).
Sea birds glide and swoop, waterfalls spray, spume, and roar, and New Zealand fur seals do absolutely nothing except lie on rocks, at least while we were there.
The Sound is home to two permanent waterfalls – Stirling Falls, named by an early New Zealand governor for himself, and Bowen Falls, which he named for his wife.
Whenever it rains, though, dozens of other cascades spring to life, including the side-by-side Angel and Fairy Falls, the Four Sisters, and others. It’s a pristine, primeval, utterly stunning spot – not to be missed!
Come back in a couple of days for a report from Queenstown. Till then, marvel at the wonders of nature!
PuffinlessTravel 