New Zealand: Week Four

Partied out and starting to really believe that alcohol might be the answer to everything, we moved on to explore the south of the South Island. Our first stop took us to Milford Sound; a 10-mile fjord in from the Tasman Sea. It rains 2 days out of 3 here, but the weather continued to be spectacular, which was actually disappointing as the water effect on the mountains is supposed to be amazing. It's actually not rained on our journey for about 3 weeks now, which never happens in New Zealand. The cruise we took down the fjord still gave us great views though. The size of the mountains is so large it makes judging distances difficult; everything looks nearer than it actually is. On the shore, in a small sheltered cove, we spotted two yellow-eyed penguins, that didn't seem overly fussed that a 30-ton boat was idling up next to them.

On the way down to Invercargill we stopped at Tuatapere; a small town consisting of a bar, a farm and a welcoming committee of teenagers who greeted us by lighting fireworks out of their car. Heading out in the morning, surprisingly still alive, we boarded the bus to Invercargill where we took a rather turbulent boat ride over to Stewart Island, one of the few places where you can see kiwis in the wild. Stewart Island forms part of Maori legend in that it is anchor for the South Island, which was pulled out of the sea. That's one thing I haven't really touched on; how much of Maori mythology and culture is integrated with the European culture. It's really good to see both cultures, in the most part, co-existing with little conflict.

Having reached Stewart Island, we hired scooters and went to see what the island had to offer. The majority of the island (80% in fact) is part of the national park, so didn't leave us with much to go on. We pretty much covered the rest of the island in about two hours, stopping to view some pretty cool beaches. In the evening we went on a kiwi hunt, which was fruitless, apart from adding to my already large collection of sand fly bites.

After an even more turbulent boat ride back to the mainland, where I really thought I was going to see breakfast again, we boarded the bus and headed for Dunedin; the second largest city in the south island. It takes its name from the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, as there is a big Scottish settlement there. Not much happened here really apart from seeing Beowulf at the cinema, which was just plain weird, and getting a cold. An interesting place though, with architecture reminiscent of Edinburgh.

This was the end of our tour round the south part, so we headed back to Queenstown, for some rest and relaxation... well, as much as you can do in Queenstown anyway. We had the now obligatory Ferg Burger, of course, which was just as good as I remembered it.