sound

Or, as another bloke on the boat expressed it: ...

My favourite bits were possibly the tiny littoral-type space between the current and high watermarks which looked a little like the horny toenails of giant mossy elephants. Though the trees on the banks were also extremely nice. Less so the waterfalls though they were still quite gawpable-at. Although relatively calm and flat the nice swell when we met the sea made the boat feel a little bit more boaty after the utter calm-except-for-other-boats'-wakes of the fjord itself.

The way over was also extremely nice with plenty of stops to get off the bus and look at things and get in the way of everyone else trying to take a picture of the same thing though I was mostly trying to get the delightfully hairy trees thought it would have been impossible and foolish to not get at least one mountain view. It would have been nice to have spotted slightly more keas (if not to photograph then at least to attempt to resist trying to feed one seeing as there are so many signs all over the place advising against it) but apart from a few lurking outside the fjord-end of Homer Tunnel none were spotted.

If you live in NZ (or even on the bit of Australia which our boat-driver assured us was a mere 800ish nautical miles away) and you haven't been to Milfjord Sound then you really ought to go. I was slightly apprehensive about it in case it was a factory-line-style coach-boat-coach trip ending up in a fjord packed to the hanging valleys with other boats chugging away and spoiling the sense of scenery but the entire journey each way can be spent staring out of the window without getting even slightly bored and the fjord is so big it could be full of boats and still extremely empty. We went with Mitre Peak and got perhaps a slightly smaller and more intimate bus and boat than might have occurred with the yellow-leaflet and red-boat most-popular-seeming tours. We also got a nice (and on the bus there almost constant) commentary from the bus and boat drivers and free soup on the boat. Couldn't tell what it was but it was tasty.

***

Despite the long day including an early start for another quick look at the variously sinister and scenic views of Te Anau including some seen the previous day we drove all the way across to Dunedin at the end of the day so that we get a full Sunday there before flying to the north island. Initial impressions are promising. Even the drive through the mistiness was pleasant, again because there were hardly any other cars there. A schoolfriend once described how different Bob albums reminded him of different school subjects to whose work he had done when listening to the various records; when driving I've mostly been listening to the only mp3-filled CD I chucked in my bag when packing which turned out to contain a couple of albums'worth of the Dufay Collective. It doesn't really go with the scenery at all but it'll be interesting to see if it reminds me of fancy hills and quiet roads when played in the future...