Feet, Flying Machines, and Ferries

Te Anau treated us well. Dan and I enjoyed three wonderful days in the town that reminded me of Queenstown’s little sister. Te Anau is the jumping off point for many long trails such as the famous Milford Track, and is surrounded by gorgeous mountains, snowy glaciers, and long, delicate waterfalls. The hostel where we stayed was a nice change to the giant, constantly busy Queenstown YHA that was always noisy and the kitchen was always full.

On our first full day in Te Anau, we decided to take it easy in the morning and in the afternoon do a three-hour trek from Rainbow Reach to Shallow Bay.

 It started with a swing bridge, where, said Dan, we both needed to get pictures because it’s very New Zealand. So here’s Strong Man Dan.

 And Kiri The Yogi.

This was nothing like our Queenstown hike mostly because it was a completely flat trail. It led us through a beautiful forest towards another lake. On this hike, I realized that the way I judge forests is by what magical creatures I imagine living in the trees and in the various crevices along the path. If there is no magic among the plants, then it is the most boring of forests. Luckily, I was constantly finding places where elves or fairies were sure to live. In my younger days, I would have constructed houses for these smallest of people, but I figured the forest already did a better job than I would.

Maybe they’d live in this stump (which I think in the picture almost looks like a pond with plant debris in the middle)...

Or in the jagged remains of a tree...

Maybe they’d live under these tree roots.

We came upon a beautiful pond called the Amoeboid Mire, made when a shard fell off a receding glacier and created this perminant indentation. No streams or rivers feed it, so only plants can leave in such nutrient poor water.

But it sure is beautiful.

And the edges have such incredible coloring.

An hour later, we reached Shallow Bay

Where I built, in Dan’s words, an “environmental sculpture.” I wonder if my cousin Robin, currently at school for architecture, would approve of the design.

The next day was probably one of the most amazing so far on this trip because it involved…drumroll totally necessary here…a helicopter ride!!! My extremely generous parents gave Dan and me the gift of seeing what most people on earth will never see. The total flight, with Mark the Pilot, was about an hour and a half where we started in Te Anau and flew over Milford Sound, landing ON a glacier ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN and then by a lake that feeds the most famous waterfall in the area, the Sutherland Falls.

This map, painted on the wall of the hostel, shows Te Anau near the middle and Milford Sound above it.

TAKE A PICTURE OF ME, DAN, I’M IN A HELICOPTER.

Me too me too!

 The clouds moved like water around the peaks. Looking at these pictures I am again filled with wonder at the amazingness of this opportunity.

I felt like I was in a nature video or a ski movie.

We landed on a GLACIER!! Here is the helicopter.

And here is Dan and me freaking out that we’re on a glacier.

The Sutherland Waterfall, zoom out.

Zoom in

 Here is the second place we landed, the lake that feeds the Sutherland Waterfall.

Throughout the whole flight I just kept thinking how I am so lucky to be seeing so many things that most people in the world never get to see. I’m still blown away by that thought.

When we got back to Te Anau, we went to a place that I’d walked past a bunch of times called Miles Better Pies And More… I don’t know what the “and more” was, but the pies were incredible.

I got a luscious and steaming steak, bacon, and mushroom pie (with the moon on it) and Dan got the thai chicken pie.

The next day (April 7) we left Te Anau barely bright and extremely early because we had a two hour drive to get to the Stewart Island Ferry in Bluff. The ferry ride over to Stewart Island was very calm and easy, and we were met at the warf by Robin, the very enthusiastic caretaker of the Bay Motel. He managed to give us about a 20 minute tour of a three street town in which we learned there are only two restaurants, diesel is very expensive on the island, all the older children have to go off island for middle and high school, we can feed the kakas outside our room almonds and peanuts, and Robin is a 

chatty Kathy.

 The kaka takes the nut delicately out of your hand with a curved beak the size of a man’s pointer finger. It was CRAZY. Who know there were parrots so far south?

 That night, we went into town, a three minute walk from our hotel that was “out of town,” and joined in on the world famous Quiz Night at the South Sea Hotel. The large quiz mistress, Vicky, loudly welcomed us as we stood awkwardly in the doorway, unsure where to sit. She quickly pulled three slightly bewildered vacationers out of a crowd of local fishermen, yelling, “There’s only three of you! You two, here’s your team!” We f all sat down on folder chairs surrounding the smoothest wooden table I ever stroked obsessively. That sounds really weird, but it’s true; I kept touching it because it felt so good. The wood was softened from decades and decades of hands that had touched, wiped, and slammed the table.

“Alright everybody, shut UP,” boomed Vicky. TWEET TWEET went Vicky’s referee’s whistle. Thus, the quiz began. We failed miserably, coming in second to last with 17 out of 40 questions right. Just so you get an idea of how bad that is, there were about 15 teams and the winners got 38 out of 40 correct. Ouch. “The score doesn’t effin’ matter! I want to see ya stand and cheer when you’re team’s name is called!” Imagine everything Vicky says in a lazy British accent and every fifth word being something that rhymes with luck. Although we made fools of ourselves that night, we enjoyed ourselves immensely, grinning all three minutes on our walk to the hotel.

Ulva Island, known for its excellent bird watching, was our destination the next day. Dan made the good point that we are living on a small island (the South Island), visiting a smaller island (Stewart Island), going to walk around an even smaller island (Ulva Island).

 On this map you can see the township, Oban, where we stayed (the “you are here” label) and Ulva Island on the upper left. The time it took us to walk from the you are here label to Golden Bay was about eight minutes, just so you get a sense of the size of the island.

We found a beach

Where Dan found an alien. Don’t make too much fun of me, it was drizzling the whole time and if you’ve ever sailed with me, you know I’ll be the first in my foul weather gear jacket tucked into my gigantor rain pants. Ok make fun of me, I just realized I made it worse.

But the coolest thing that happened was that while we were eating lunch, a bunch of Stewart Island robins, grey and white fluffy things, hopped around our feet jumping up on our boots and thoroughly enjoying my brightly colored shots.

 It was the most like Cinderella I’ve ever felt. Photo courtesy of my human lunch partner, Dan.

As we walked along the paths, we heard a bright melody of various birdsong. My favorite call was the kaka’s because it sounds like water dripping from a faucet. I wished I had my aunt and uncle were along to experience this with us since they are enthusiastic birdwatchers who may or may not have an app on their iPhones that identify bird calls.

That night, we had an amazing dinner at the Church Hill Café, a five minute walk from our hotel. I gorged myself on seafood from the island. Green-lipped mussels steamed in a spicy ginger, garlic and chili broth, sweet oysters on the half shell, and a salmon and blue cod citrus and soy ceviche satisfied my mighty appetite for creatures from the sea. The meal convinced me that I just want to eat raw fish on Stewart Island for the rest of my life.

This morning brought another sunrise start to get to the eight o’clock ferry off the island. But it was worth waking up early because it was that special time of day where the light is liquid gold and the sky is a gentle blue.

 Looking out to sea from the ferry terminal. Those two islands that look like mummies lying head to head are called the Tiki Islands.

Now I find myself in a hostel (sad, I miss having my own HUGE bed and clean bathroom at the Bay Motel) in Wanaka. It is another town on a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. I am constantly in awe, wondering, how did I get here? Am I really experiencing all this? How did I get so lucky? I’m trying to soak it in but it is difficult. I feel so full I’m going to burst with trying to keep it all in. But I’m going to try to take the advice of a quote Char gave me from American Beauty, “it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude…”