Lots to catch up on, but I'll make this post about our favorite thing we've done so far. The night that we got off of Milford we stayed at a hostel nearby called Milford Lodge. It was a fairly nice hostel as far as hostels go.* We woke up bright and early, packed, and loaded the car and waited for our kayak guide to meet us in the common room. Our plan for the day: sea kayak the Milford Sound all the way out to the Tasman Sea!
Our tourguide's name was Marc and he is a native South Islander who has been giving these tours for almost two years. He was awesome! He started off in the common roo giving us an overview of what we were about to do (including the "oh so important point" that they would be providing warm, waterproof clothes for the journey). We set off from the lodge, were fitted for our clothes, and took off! There were 6 customers + Marc and another semi-guide that took part. The kayaks were double kayaks: I took the front seat (setting the pace) and Lindsey took the back seat (stearing).
The morning started off beautifully. It was pretty cloudy at first, but the forecast was sunny and Marc told us we'd likely be getting to experience the "Milford striptease," which basically meant that the mountains and surrounding area would slowly be revealing themselves as the day went on. At first, the kayaking was pretty tough - Lindsey had a sticky rudder, and I had kayaking inexperience. It got better as we went on, and the trip was beautiful! We were surrounded by mountains and waterfalls throughout the trip and the water was crazy peaceful (except when the cruise ships drove by). Multiple times throughout the kayak, we ventured over and got under a few waterfalls. We even passed by a rock with a bunch of seals hanging out on it and got lots of pictures of them. It was so great!
One of the funnier moments came when Lindsey and I were cruising along, only to hear a loud clunk. Lindsey had been commenting that her left pedal was really stiff all day long, and sure enough, the pedal had broken leaving us rudderless. We quickly formed a raft with the rest of the kayaks and did and mid-sea switch of kayaks with our guides. They were clearly more equipped to handle a kayak sans rudder, so they jumped over, we jumped into their kayak, and we continued on! It was really funny and extremely typical of Lindsey's luck.
The kayaking ended as we emerged out into the open Tasman Sea (the body of water between NZ and Australia). We cruised on it in the bright sunshine for a while until we were picked up by a boat and taken back in. Only once we were on the boat did we realize just how far we'd gone: 16 km! That's basically 11 miles in a kayak in a few hours. We felt tough. We drove back on Milford Rd, arrived in Queenstown in the early afternoon, said goodbye to Whitney and Rory, and checked in to the Haka lodge, another hostel. That night we treated ourselves to a Fergburger, a famous burger place in Queenstown.
Overall, it was one of the most fun things we'd done. It was super nice, the guide was great, and the weather was dynamite! We'll post pictures later, as the only ones we got were on an actually camera, and we have to upload them on a real computer when we get back to the States.
Cheers!
Daniel
*Hostels are hilarious to me. The point of hostels is to provide a low cost shelter for the night for travelers, which is exactly what they do, but they are so different than American hotels. There are mostly 4 bunk rooms with some private double bed rooms, a common area, a kitchen, and a shared bathroom. In the hostels, you make your own food, clean your own dishes, bring your own towels and linens, supply your own shampoo and soap, and most of the time pay a pretty penny for internet. It's great for people like us on a budget, but it cracks me up that you can pay $33 to stay in a room with randos (if you do the bunk room) and do all of your everyday house chores!
No comments:
Post a Comment