I’m talkin’ the South-South.

On Sunday, June 6th, three girls left the confines of Ilam and city lights of Christchurch ready to see the rest of the South Island. Nicole, Grace, & I had not seen Milford Sound yet, so we planned a whole trip around it! And it ended up being a really wonderful week. Let me tell you about it…

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Day 1: Lots of driving. We made our way from Christchurch to Te Anau, which is the last sign of civilization before reaching Milford Sound. Now before I go on, I must explain the difference between Mixed-Company Road Trips and Girls Road Trips. The contrast can be illustrated by thinking back to your childhood memories. Family roadtrips= the father refuses to stop for a bathroom break, let alone to stop for ANYTHING. I have found this trait to be present in most of the male population that you travel with. Most- I would exclude Damon- he was a great fellow traveler, but he’s also known as the nicest guy in the world, which must override any negative male-tendencies. Anyway, my point is, not to offend all the males that read my blog, just to point out the contrast. So since this was a girl’s trip, we DO stop. For bathroom breaks. For picture taking. For scenic lookouts. I found this to be very refreshing. Although, I probably err on the side of too many stops. I want to take a picture of everything. It’s New Zealand- I can’t help it, I get excited. So there was a time I got a “Juli… we just stopped…” from the driver hahaha. SO. We stopped at beautiful bright-blue Lake Tekapo and then Lake Pukaki to get a view of Mt. Cook. Unfortunately for Grace who hadn’t seen Mt. Cook, it was hiding behind the clouds. We also planned a stop in Queenstown to get a Fergburger! Oh, they’re just so good. I wish you all could experience one. On the way to QT, it was SNOWING in the mountainous areas we drove through. There was literally a light covering of snow on either side of the road. Who knew I’d ever see snow in June. After our 8 hours in the car, we were ready to settle in. We stayed at a mom-and-pop hostel called Bob & Maxine’s a little outside of town. It was a great place- very welcoming hosts, a wood burning fire, and beautiful view of mountains outside the windows in the morning. So great that we ended up staying there the next night too! We went to bed early that night- but not without playing rummy with one of the Germans boys who were also staying there. The first of many Germans we were to meet!

Day 2: Drum roll please. It’s finally time to see Milford Sound. Before I left, when people would find out I was going to NZ, many would ask if I were going to Milford Sound. The answer was always yes. I had wanted to do the Milford Track over our 3-week break.. which is supposed to be one of the finest walks in the world… but alas, you have to book the huts much farther in advance than I anticipated.  But just the 2 1/2 hour drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound is amazing. It was cloudy with sporadic rain throughout our drive, but that did not hinder us. We stopped at a lake with mountains barely peaking out behind some clouds, and since we couldn’t see much our motto was, “I’m not sure what this is.. but it’s awesome!!” There were wide green plains, frost-tipped green mountains which I found very intriguing, and snow capped ones too! I was basically staring out the window in awe the whole time. Towards the end of the drive, you have to go through a tunnel through a mountain. Cool, right? While we were waiting for the signal to turn green, I saw a kea flying around and then heard it land on our car. There’s a kea on our roof! Keas are the only alpine parrot in the world and are pretty social birds (pretty social or pretty, social? both.)! They will peck at you if they think you have food haha. We made another stop for a short walk to “The Chasm.” If I say “rocks carved out by water” it sounds pretty underwhelming, but it was not at all! To see Milford Sound, ya need a boat. lol. We booked the 2 hour Mitre Peak cruise for the day (which I found out is “m-ai-ter” not “meter”). We made our way to the top of the boat and started snapping pictures right away. I’m not sure if our cameras ever left our hands. The boat takes you out to the Tasman Sea and back. Sheer cliffs rise out of a deep, turquoise-blue water, waterfalls strewn all over the mountain-sides… more awe. When the boat turned around, we were the only ones left on top  due to the wind. But we had fun with it- I guess we were playing in the wind! Nicole did manage to get splashed by a wave up there though lol. The whole time we were really really hoping to see dolphins… our hope declined as we approached the end of the cruise, but all the sudden the boat is pulling off to the side and we hear over the loudspeakers “There are dolphins up ahead!” Not just one or two- a whole group of them swimming around the boat. It was wonderful. In the end- Milford Sound completely lived up to its hype and to the excitement I had built up in my head. Even if I hadn’t seen dolphins…  we ended a wonderful day by treating ourselves to dinner in Te Anau. That night at the hostel, Nicole & I ended up talking to 3 women from the UK and an Irish guy for quite sometime about their travels in NZ and around the world. Can I just say again- I love English accents. The girls were actually a bit older than us- although you couldn’t tell at all. They thought it was so great that we were studying abroad in NZ at our age and wish they had done more traveling then. I have met so many European people who are just taking 6 months off of life and traveling the world or students who take a gap-year off before university. That’s not very popular in the U.S. You either go straight to college or take a year off to work, so that you can afford college. You would never put your career on halt to go see the world either. I fall into that trap too. I would love to take a year off before grad school to see more of the world, but I would feel like I was falling behind my cohorts. Like I’m out of the race. I would be afraid it looks like I’m not serious about Speech Pathology. But as the English gals said- when else are you going to? You get married. You have a house which =mortgage. You have a job you really can’t leave. Despite the allure of it all, 99% sure I will go straight to grad school. But being abroad sure has broadened my grad school choices to other areas of the U.S. I thought before I would apply to a couple places out of state, but plan to stay in Indiana. Now, that has changed. Not quite sure where I’ll be… and that’s okay! Prayer can quell all those doubts and worries. Wow that was an unexpected tangent! and I’m afraid I’ve exhausted my writing abilities for the day…. I’ll have to wait for another day to finish talking about sea lions and penguins and coastline.

In non-road trip life, well… we’re leaving for a trip tomorrow! down to Dunedin to see the ALL BLACKS! Literally every hostel is booked down there. There will not be an empty seat in the stadium. It’s gonna be awesome!

I leave you with a glimpse of Milford…

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~ by Juli on June 18, 2010.