Milford with a side of Ribs

It's a bright and relatively-early morning for our Milford Sound cruise. We've really been blessed with spectacular weather today.  Or, as Ian would say, "GORGE-ous" weather.  While Ian was catching up on some blog-writing, I went outside to snap a few shots by the lake before our tour began.

 

The shuttle bus picked us up from our hotel at 9:30 so that we could join the main tour bus down in the town centre.  Most of the tour's participants were doing this as a day trip out of Queenstown.  Milford is actually only 70 kilometers or so from Queenstown as the crow flies, but since the crow would be flying over a mountain range and a lake, people traveling to Milford must take the longer 240 kilometer route, which takes roughly 5 hours.  Te Anau is about 3 hours into the trip, so the folks already on the bus had been up since 6AM -- certainly glad we weren't one of them!

The first stop en route to Milford was the Mirror Lake. This was probably my favorite photo shot of the day -- great reflections in the still water of the surrounding mountains.

It was too bad that we could only stop for a few minutes -- Ian could have stayed here for a good hour at least. 

 I've taken this trip as a chance to learn a little bit more about photography -- read: finally took the time to figure out what the AV, TV, and ISO controls on my camera meant.  Still pretty green, but it's a start?  Here's my attempt at an action shot.

The buses were clearly designed for scenic touring -- they had huge picture windows on all sides and all glass tops.  Certainly glad I put on sunscreen this morning. 

Ian, of course, was focused on the wildlife. 

Though you'd think the sign is pretty self-explanatory,  we've apparently got lots of picture-illiterate folks visiting these parts as the Kea were constantly drawn to the tour buses.

I figure we should include at least a couple shots with us in them to prove that we're not just uploading stock photos.

A little bit here about the etymology of Milford Sound.  As we were informed many times during our tour, it is not technically a sound at all, but a fjord. A sound is a land mass that is carved out by water, which at some point recedes, and then is again partially refilled, characterized by a sloping sea floor and sloping mountain sides.  By contrast, a fjord is formed when a land mass is carved out by a glacier and is characterized by a rather flat sea floor and dramatic vertical sides.  As we got closer to our destination, it became more obvious that we were nearing glacier territory.

Around 12:30, we finally arrived at the port.  We disembarked from our coach buses and boarded the boats.

Milford, particularly on a sunny, clear day like this one, is really a beautiful thing.  It's the combination of snow-capped mountains and clear green-blue water that makes it unique.

It's actually the uncommon day that sees Milford without any rain clouds. As the ship captain informed us, it rains nearly 200 days of the year in Milford. Apparently though, visitors who catch it on of those days shouldn't be too disappointed -- we saw a couple lovely waterfalls sprouting from the sides of the cliffs, but when it's raining, apparently dozens or even hundreds of tiny waterfalls appear across the area.

 

Personally though, I think the clear skies were worth a few less waterfalls. :)

For one thing, without any sun -- we'd never have gotten to see the rainbow waterfall!

Plus, I'm not sure our cameras could have taken waterfalls that were more intense...

Milford, for all its tourism popularity now, was actually overlooked by most early explorers.  When seen from the Tasman Sea, it's not much and doesn't suggest that there's enough room for ships to really pass through. 

It wasn't until the sealers came along that Milford finally made it onto the map. As our ship captain mused, the sealers really are the least appreciated explorers of the world's many coastlines.  We happened to spot a group of seals sunning themselves on an outcrop of rocks.

It's amazing how well they camouflage!

Though some can't help but strike a pose for the cameras.

 

We also tried to catch a glimpse of the Fiordland crested penguins -- they're really small, but very distinctive bright yellow crowns.  They're also one of the rarest penguins around, numbering only a couple thousand worldwide.  We slowly went past some of their favorite nesting grounds, but we only caught a glimpse of one guy as he was diving around in the water. Just take our word that this was a penguin!

 

Eventually though, it was time to head back to shore. 

We both tried to catch a nap on the bus ride back -- we had a two hour drive ahead of us on twisty roads. Ian was a trooper though and handled the roads as if he'd been driving on the left side for much longer than 1 week. He even passed our tour bus on the highway back to Queenstown. Twice. No, he didn't lap it, we stopped halfway to take pictures.  We got to our hotel before reception closed for the night, dropped off our bags, and treated ourselves to some massive ribs and steaks at Flame -- the best steakhouse in town. Ian got his filet blue (ewww!) while I over-ordered, to put it mildly.

Oh well, leftover ribs are great for breakfast! :)

The Trek to the Glow Worms

A morning flight to Queenstown, and we were off to the car rental place.



A few hours of driving through sheep...




...and we'd arrived in Te Anau.



We dropped off our bags at the hotel, and went straight to the ferry for the Glow Worm tour.



It was a bit if a wait at the ferry terminal, but fortunately there was some quality reading material:



As the ferry left, it began to get dark. Not dark enough to hide the fact that I still need a haircut.



Since the glow worms are in a cave, the dark didn't matter much.



These inch-long worms are interesting creatures. They are spider-like in that their primary food source is insects which they ensnare, not in a web, but in droplets of mucus hanging from the ceiling.



No photos were allowed inside the cave, so I was carrying the camera for nothing.




Luckily Ming didn't realize that applied to the entrance as well, where the rule is enforced not to protect the worms, but the $40 photo scam the guides have going there. These photo tourist traps are everywhere, but this one was particularly egregious.



We shuffled along planks for fifteen minutes. When done in a cave, I'm told it's called "shufplanking". Then we got in a boat on the underground river in the pitch black. The guide pulled us along a chain attached to the wall and pretty soon constellations came into view. These constellations weren't stars, though; they were worms.

Actually, we could really only see the rear-end of each worm, which was glowing to attract insects towards their demise. There were probably a couple thousand in total. Many were actually within reach, but I can't imagine what would compel anyone to reach into a glowing mass of worms and mucus. Still we were warned against it.

We spent twenty minutes in the boat under the worm-stars. Every once in a while a drop of liquid would splash my face as I stared into the black, leaving me wondering whether the source was condensation or if one of the glowing blue spots overhead got a little careless with it's mucus.

There wasn't much more to the tour since we weren't lucky enough to see one of the eels that makes its way into the underground river. Since we also didn't see any of the huge daddy-long-legs-esque spiders, I'm calling this a draw. We rode the ferry back and after some blogging, it was time for bed.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Te Anau, New Zealand

Game Day

What better way to start out game day than at a museum.












Hmm, it's actually not as non-sequitur as it sounds. New Zealand rugby co-opts a number of Māori cultural traditions. Each Rugby World Cup game begins with a fierce looking Māori warrior calling out the teams with a loud blast on the Pukaea, a long wooden horn with a deep resounding wail, that is inexplicably not followed by the bellowing of "Riiiiicccccccooooooolllllaa!"

The New Zealand team, the All Blacks, actually perform a Haka at the beginning of each game as well. Hakas are traditional Māori dances, some of which are used for lament, homecoming, and so on. When used for battle, they're particularly useful for intimidating your opponent, since part of the dance requires you to show the whites of your eyes as much as possible. The museum gave us a demonstration:













And asked the audience to try it:














We also saw a few traditions rugby hasn't quite worked in yet. As far as I know, rugby players don't greet each other by touching foreheads... although the "scrum" comes pretty close. Rugby also doesn't yet incorporate these swinging white balls (called Poi), which dubious rumors suggest were traditionally used by the men to strengthen their wrists, but are more likely (as in this case) used by the women for storytelling and performance art.














And finally, rugby has not yet incorporated the only exhibit of a Colossal Squid carcass in the world. Though given the opportunity, I have to believe they would, even if it's not technically Maori-related. It was impressive. More impressive than this under-lit photo let's on. The squid was caught when it latched onto a fish already snagged on a hook. For some reason it never let go and took the ride all the way to the surface - no one knows why the squid had to have THAT fish.















The museum actually had a number of other non-Māori related exhibits, which I tended to prefer to the more historical, Waitangi treaty related ones. While Ming was engrossed in the story of how Queen Victoria's settlers negotiated this controversial treaty with the natives, I was reading about the other invasive species that have come to the islands since that time:














Many of the exhibits tried to be hi-tech or game-like in one way or another, where by "hi-tech", I mean on par with the Oregon Trail a couple of decades ago. The game-portions were about as fun as Oregon Trail too, except without the hunting. Ming, however, was enthralled.

Pretty soon I was ready to go. It's not that I don't like museums; I generally do. It's just that they seem to have a very short half-life for me. That is, the first exhibit I see is usually great; the second, pretty good; but my interest decays geometrically from there. This is probably in part because I never save the best for last, and maybe in part because I just get tired from all the walking; but I also have this working theory that writing something on a plaque immediately, and in the squid's case quite literally, sucks the life out of it. You might say I've got the causality wrong there, but there's no arguing with the correlation.

After winding our way out of the museum... okay fine, after dragging Ming out of the museum... we were in search of a late lunch. Martin Bosley's wasn't too far away and was rated the best restaurant in Wellington by someone at some point, so we decided to check it out.













I had the fish and chips.













Ming had just the fish.














The food was pretty good, but the view was better.












By the time lunch was over, it was already well past 3:00, at which point I realized I was going to be late for my nap. I've been going to sleep pretty regularly between nine and ten, which for me is a minor miracle, but I was going to have to kick the habit to stay up for the rugby. Hence the nap.

There were a few more delays on the way back to the hotel to take some photos of Wellington's government buildings. After all, we realized a full 24 hours after arriving, it is the capitol. Here's the Beehive, aka, Parliament.













When we got back to the hotel, Ming went straight to the gym and I went straight to bed. An hour and a half later we were both energetic enough to dart out the door towards the rugby pitch. That's right it's called a pitch, not a field; probably for the same reason the trunk of a car is called a boot... though I have yet to figure out what that reason is.

On the 20 minute walk to the stadium we were shocked to see all the US flags and elaborate red-white-and-blue apparel. Every rugby fan from the US (all five or six hundred) must have converged on New Zealand to watch what would undoubtedly be an embarrassing thrashing for the US of A.

Listening more closely to their chants however, we noticed slight accents on the "A" of "USA! USA!". When we stood up to sing the national anthem, the charade was shattered by a fan who looked a lot like Uncle Sam, but was clearly reading the lyrics from a sheet of paper.













It was explained to us later that the Kiwis (read New Zealanders) are so passionate about rugby that they will buy all the apparel, wave the flag, and sing the national anthem of whichever side they dislike the least, or in the rare case they are truly apathetic, choose a side to root for randomly. After this discovery, we kept our eyes peeled and our ears open for actual fans from the USA... we are still looking.

In the AU-US battle, it appeared that Australia had some particularly ardent anti-fans, making the pro-US numbers significant. Obama himself even made an appearance:












It also turns out that Kiwis dressed as Americans are some of the rudest sports fans I've ever encountered. The guys behind us were wasted when the game began, and judging by the number of times I was sprayed by a clumsily opened Heineken, they consumed another keg, in can-sized increments, over the course of the game.

In addition to the beer, the frat house behind us donated a dollop of ketchup to Ming's coat and a healthy portion of foul language throughout the game. In fact, one Aussie-dressed Kiwi sitting next to us asked them to tone down the language a notch, citing the 5 and 6 year olds around us, but after a silent minute, they realized they had nothing else to say to each other and started up again. The only saving grace of this slurring pack of pseudo-Americans was that they served as a buffer between us and another American-clad Kiwi vomiting between the seats two rows back. With a little concentration we were able to ignore the circus behind us once the game started.












The US rugby team is admittedly second-tier, and tonight we had in our B-team since our top guys wore themselves out in a win against Russia. I think another weak point of the US team is our general intimidation technique. Instead of starting with a Haka, we just stand around in what looks to be a white uniform with a blue speedo on the outside.












Rugby is a funny game in a lot of ways. The most important games are called "tests" and the equivalent of a touchdown is called a "try". Unlike American football, play is continuous... or at least as continuous as can be given that every few seconds ends with a pile of players called a ruck:












The ruck essentially forms a line of scrimmage from which the ball needs to be rolled out backwards to be picked up and then passed to a player waiting to make a run for it. Penalties are pretty much the only way to stop the game (except for tries) - a scrum often forms after a penalty or mistake causes a turnover.












The team with possession rolls the ball in between the two teams and the "hooker" from each team tries to hook the ball back towards their side of the scrum. Once in possession, it's another mad dash for the goal line, or perhaps a "tap" kick upfield in hopes of regaining possession. The game ends after eighty minutes of play or when the seeker catches the golden snitch.

There were times when we put up a certain amount of resistance to the Australian offensive. If not stopping them from scoring a try, we would at least attempt to embarrass them by pulling off their shorts.












There were other times we gave no resistance at all.












The Aussies still made it look difficult though.

























A try, worth five points, can get bumped up to seven if a conversion kick is successful. The guy in red is the ref. The yellow guy is the kicker. I guess the blue guy brought a picnic.












The Americans were feeling and looking dejected.












We did manage to score one try though! Pretty good for our back-up team, though in the end we did lose 5 to 67. At least we try'ed.












Ming even bought a beanie to show her support, a surprising move given her poor record of supporting the US at international sporting events. I guess China wasn't playing though.












So two hours, a dozen "Mexican waves," and only one guy-left-on-stretcher-injury later, we'd survived our first rugby World Cup game - well, our first rugby game period. It was definitely an experience not to be missed.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Wellington, NZ

All's well in Wellington

Not a lot to report on regarding today's travels... Mainly because traveling is about all we did. After a 3.5 hour drive from the Bay of Islands, we hopped an hour long flight to Wellington. When we got into our hotel it was already late afternoon, and dinner snuck up on us pretty quickly.

We decided to make the trek over to Cuba street, famous for it's bustling bohemian atmosphere. We snapped a quick picture at this fountain, which was either very poorly designed, or intended to double as a street-washer.





For dinner we caught the early-bird special at a French bistro called Le Metropolitain. I had the venison on glazed pears (yum!) and Ming had the fish of the day. This blurry iPhone photo will have to serve as proof.



The walk back was colder and felt longer than the walk out, and Ming wimped out on watching the South Africa vs. Namibia game at a local bar. Instead we watched Namibia flounder helplessly from the comfort of our hotel room... preparing us for the trouncing that the US will surely experience tomorrow.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Wellington, NZ