On Holiday, Part III - Abridged (For Me)

Since I never wrote up my Part III on our vacation, I'm skipping the whole bit in Christchurch and Dunedin. They were fantastic to visit, but since my blogs are now several weeks behind reality in time, I'm going to skip all that. I'll just talk about our last part of the trip which was to Doubtful Sound, an unbelievably gorgeous sound on the western side of the south island of New Zealand.

This was our big splurge of the vacation, and I was pretty excited, not to mention excited that Beau would finally be able to see some landscapes to rival his unrivaled view of Montana. We drove from Dunedin on the east coast to Te Anau, which is basically a resort town pitstop. Most people go on to Milford Sound which is the sound with more infrastructure. Our choice of Doubtful was entirely due to a bunch of senior citizens we met while touring the Cadbury Chocolate factory in Dunedin. You know the types, they're retired, but they're constantly traveling the world in these large tour groups. They're wearing sneakers and comfy clothes in soft colors, and they know their shit. I like them. Beau seems to attract them like bees to a flower. They're always starting conversations with him. Sometimes very LONG conversations in which I have to send Beau about a dozen not-so-subtle "Let's gooooooo" clues.

I find these seasoned travelers far more adventurous than the smug backpackers who think THEY are the only legitimate travelers in the world. I find many backpackers pompous and boring. I did my backpacker thing in Europe when I was 22, and it was a lot of fun, but I did it because I was broke. I didn't find myself any less of a "real" traveler getting the "real" experience five years later in Thailand when I had more money and more comfort to purchase. Besides, as my three years living in Bangkok taught me, backpackers flock together like migratory birds, and the "legitimate experience" they all think they're getting has been completely fabricated for them by clever tour operators. Just because you sleep on a cheap mattress with a mosquito net and go riding an elephant through the jungle doesn't mean you're getting something authentic.

Any "real" experience simply comes from a) learning the language if you don't already, and b) simply living somewhere for an extended period of time and absorbing as much culture as you can. It takes many many years to really get the culture of another country. I barely scratched the surface during my three years in Thailand. BUT I DIGRESS! Obviously, I have issues with some backpackers. *cough* Let's continue on with New Zealand...

Anyway, these old folks told us about Doubtful Sound, how it was the best thing they'd ever seen, etc. and how it was much better than Milford Sound which was more crowded and annoying now. So, instead of heading south to Invercargill like we planned, we detoured and crossed the island to Te Anau.

The tour was a bit pricey, about $230 NZD (about $158 USD) each, if I remember, for the whole day. Oh well, we ARE on vacation! The trip started out in a smaller town of Manapouri on its lake, where we all boarded a large boat, which was really like a gigantic speedboat. It was a pretty chilly day, and we were inside immediately, since the speed of the boat through the lake and the sheer force of the wind was enough to jostle you and jiggle your jowls around quite a bit. But soon, we got brave enough to venture outside because shit, who wants to miss it? The view was unbelievable. I couldn't take enough photos.

This lake ride ended after 50 minutes when we landed on a small island for a bathroom break and a small walk around the center which had up a large display of the history of the area. Mildly interesting, but we just wanted to continue on the tour. On the island we boarded one of three buses. Our tour operator, who had a classier title like, "Wildlife Educator and Facilitator" or some such, gave quite an interesting lesson, dotted with some fantastic dry humor, on the surrounding flora and fauna, as well as some of the pesky vermin, all introduced by early Europeans, that plagued the area. The bus ride was necessary, since it was the only way to reach the sound on the other side. There we boarded another boat, a much larger one, phew, and the tour of the sound began.

It was named Doubtful Sound by NZ's famous explorer/seaman Captain Cook, who was responsible for naming a great many things in New Zealand (if you choose to ignore all the Maori names that were previously in place, of course). And apparently he named many of them erroneously as we've been informed on several different tours. Anyway, this was named "Doubtful" due to the fact that he took one look at the sound and decided it was "doubtful" they could get their ship out of it again if they chose to venture in. Supposedly he was correct on this front.

The tour was a few hours long and for the first couple hours, standing out on deck which we did for most of it, you just oooh and ahhh continuously. The mountains that rise again and again around you seem so rugged, so crazy, just so uninviting that they seem almost magical. I kept looking around trying to spot a place where a hermit could camp out for his days, though he'd have to make some big ass supply trips once in awhile. I have had frequent hermit fantasies myself throughout my life, which probably explains why I have lived alone so easily, and there's always that one of being totally isolated in some gorgeous forest/lake setting. Of course, I know without internet and cable I'd probably go completely bezerko and in the end be an utter failure as a recluse.

After a few hours on deck, with that pounding wind, you go back inside the boat, get some hot chocolate, and kinda decompress a bit. Even the most amazing beautiful tour can kinda get old after awhile, and you get to the point where you say, "Okay, I'm done, can we go back now?" Not one of our species' finer points I think, but true. Beau and I did have a few revivals, like when we approached the giant rock where fur seals were lounging, the rocks where some elusive penguins were aboding (so elusive we never spotted even one), and then my super-revival came when told to look for bottlenose dolphins, which are my absolute favorite animal, and which I was completely DYING to spot. Apparently a particular pod hung out in that area and frequently jumped and frolicked along with the boat. Yes! Sadly, as we began to exit the sound and go out into open sea, the waves were so rough, the boat turned around and headed back. Despite my unwillingness to give up on the dolphins, and secretly hoping that I'd be the one to spot them and alert all others, they were nowhere to be found. That sucked.

Finally, Beau and I did completely retire inside the cabin and just sort of sat there, listening to the two pilots rattle off their tour schpiel, which was honestly fairly interesting, but by that point we were just warming up and resting, half leaning against each other for warmth and support.

On the way back, the boat stopped at the massive Manapouri underground power station, which is an engineer's wet dream, but by this time, Beau and I were worn out and I wasn't all that interested, despite its awesomeness. But we were all forced to travel far far far underground and then walk around a small room which overlooked the whole thing. Mercifully, we were allowed to return to the bus, and finally make the journey all the way back to point A, in Manapouri on the lake, exhausted, but pretty happy about the whole experience.

I had been feeling a bit ooky during the trip, but was so into it all, that I ignored my body and tried to just have the best time I could. I'd pay for that, for when I awoke the next morning I was catapulted into complete illness hell and continued to feel utter misery for most of our long drive home. Living abroad a few times, I have come to believe that you grow somewhat used to your own country's viruses, so when you live somewhere new and get something like a common cold, it hits you with such a ferocious force, that you feel sicker than you ever have. You keep thinking, "Shit, it's just a cold," but you can't believe how incredibly horrible your body feels. Beau went through the same thing, his illness ending just as mine began. I don't know how he did it. Thank god he's is a driving machine and I got to spend the rest of the return trip wallowing in self-pity in the passenger seat. But if that was the price I'd have to pay for the trip, then I gladly paid it.