Homeward Bound -- March 2-3-4, 2019

We got up, loaded up our suitcases, headed to the airport, dropped off the car, went into to the airport and flew to Sydney on March 2.   Then we spent the night at the Mercure Airport Hotel, got up again, headed to the Sydney Airport on March 3, did what one has to do in an airport and flew home -- Julie/Harold to Pittsburgh (arriving on the 3rd), Gil/Deborah to Cuenca, Ecuador (arriving on the 4th).  Here are a couple of "good-bye, Sydney" pictures Gil took from their airplane:

A wonderful trip came to its conclusion.

Milford Sound -- last day of touring, March 1, 2019

Our final day of touring was a day-trip on the Milford Sound.  What a glorious end to our trip! We drove to Milford Sound and then headed vis boat into the fjords of New Zealand.

Ray, our guide, provided with us a ton of information about this part of New Zealand. Here is a smattering of the info.

our route

Gil doing what he did a lot of on this trip

Ray, our guide

Rocks covered with a lichen.

      -- Formerly, there were 80 million sheep in New Zealand; currently, there are 25 million because of a drop in the market.  The dairy industry, however, is growing, and the country now provides more milk powder than any place in the world.

     -- NZ gets 1200 earthquakes a year.  Ray has an app on his phone to tell him when and how many earthquakes are occurring.  He checks it often, and some mornings, there are as many as 6 or 7.  Fortunately, they are deep, so the one this morning, at 3.5 on the Richter scale, wasn't even really noticeable.

     -- Before man, NZ had tons of bird species.  Dogs (on purpose) and rats (accidentally) were brought by the Maori; then sheep, pigs, goats, rabbits, cats, and more rats were brought by the white folks because they felt they needed these mammals to survive.  Soon there were 10 species of mammals on the island (previously, there were none).  Soon 33 species of mammals had been introduced; 25 of those original 33 species are still prevalent.  One of those species is the Red Elk (Wapiti Elk); Teddy Roosevelt gifted 20 of these elk to New Zealand, and now they are creating considerable devastation on the two islands, but also bring in profits because there is a large venison farming/food business.

     -- The number 1 public enemy is the possum; they believe there are 50-70 million possums in the country.  In the past (1970s-80s), the government paid $15 for a single pelt.  Catching possums started to be financially lucrative, and some people started raising possums, which didn’t help the purpose of getting rid of the possums on the islands, so the government stopped paying.  Now they are poisoning them, very controversially:  STOP 1080 signs can be seen.  Much of the road kill you see is possums because they travel actively at night.  They call these “squashums.”  :-)

     -- Stoats and rats are a major problem also, and the government has set up traps to catch them.  Volunteers go around to the traps to clean them out, and even school skids go around one day a month to help out.

The pink tag indicating a trap is below.  Below you see a tag stuck on a tree.  

The trap itself

    -- Trout were introduced, and Milford Sound is full of them.  No commercial fishing is allowed, but individuals can catch and keep as many as they wish as long as they have a proper license.  Ray, our guide, recently caught a 12.5 pound trout, the largest he has ever caught.

Okay, beyond the tidbits of info – we travelled to Milford Sound and boarded a boat to take us on a two-hour boat trip of the sound and the fiord.  The sights were spectacular.  We saw waterfalls, two of which are year-round falls.  We also were lucky enough to see bottleneck dolphins (endangered), New Zealand Fur Seals (once close to extinction but now coming back).  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see either the Fiordland Crested Penguins or the Blue Penguins which are both endangered.

note the dolphins galloping next to the boat

note the fur seal resting on the rock

and now diving into the water

and another fur seal resting (left side of pic)

The fiords themselves were spectacular, and according to our sea captain, jut as far down into the water as they rise straight up out of the water.  The lakes were created by glaciers and are u-shaped underwater and very deep.

After the boat trip, we headed back to Te Anau, but made several stops along the way to see various sights.  One was the Road Building home site for the workers who built the Milford Sound Road during the depression.  It has since been converted into a low-budget overnight place.  At that location, we had tea (date scones and coffee/tea).  A nice break before we headed back to Te Anau for our last night.

And the tunnel the crew dug out by hand the Homer Tunnel, almost a mile long.  Controversial plans are underway to rebuild the tunnel

the tunnel

At one point, we stopped to go to the Chasm and crossed the river on a swinging bridge before seeing the chasm, beautiful water, and evidence of the power of water.

 

the power of water -- note circular holes and indentations

And we were "home" again.  We had our cocktails walked over to The Ranch in Queenstown to eat.  It was less than stellar, but served the purpose.  Then to bed -- our last night in New Zealand.

Trekking to Te Anau and Glowworms -- February 28

On the morning of Feb 28, we got up, packed up our car and headed to Te Anau.  It was a pleasant two-hour drive, full of stunningly beautiful and unique topography.  Here are some pictures along the route.

The Maori used wild flax for clothes (see previous pictures).  Here are some wild flax plants.  The stems were used for the reed-like portion of the clothes.  When in bloom, the flowers are orange.

Once there, we stopped at our last AirBnB to unload our suitcases.  Then we headed to the City Center to have a quick lunch before we headed to the marina area where we boarded a boat to go to the Glow Worm caves.

Nice boat trip on a fancy catamaran, with lots of beautiful scenery along the way.  We got a sneak peak at the surroundings of our tour tomorrow which will focus on the fiords of New Zealand.  Lake Te Anau is beautiful with the rugged mountains surrounding it.

This was not our boat but was tethered next to it.  It's a sailboat which can be hired, 

complete with a couple of sea-outfitted captains. 

At the Glow Worm Caverns, we were broken up into groups of about 12 to enter the caverns.  Utterly amazing to see the ferociously rushing water and the areas that had been and were being dug out by the water.  Happily, the owners had done an excellent job of building the walkways for us, and although we occasionally had to do a low duck walk for a bit, the trek was mostly easy. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures while inside the caverns, but I did take some pictures off a TV screen in the Centre.

During this trek, we got a sneak peak at the Glow Worms as they were building their webs.  We walked a bit further, and then our group boarded a small boat, barely large enough for our group.  We were told not to speak or to shine any lights.  We cruised around (actually our guide was pulling us along with a chain) basically in a circle on the water inside a very dark cave.  We could see thousands of glowworms above us and around us.

We finished our boat trek and then took another hike to get out of the caverns.  Then we had another very short hike through a forest-type region before we entered the main building.  At that point, someone lectured on the life stages of the glow worm.   Basically, they eat, procreate, and then die.  What a life (not).  Fascinating though.

After our lecture, we boarded the large catamaran again to head back to Te Anau.  We bought a bit of food, headed back to our “home,” had some cocktails, then walked downtown to have dinner at a pizza/pasta place.  Then “home” again -- we went to rest up for our final day of touring.