Milford Sound

Remember that short blog I’ve been promising? Well, here it is.

Christchurch

Windy, cold, foggy, rainy, gray and ugly. Went to town, bought a jacket. Move along, nothing to see here. Watched the Super Bowl on the ship. The end!

Dunedin

Now for another long one! We were up at 5:30 to see our arrival. It was nothing special but the sunrise was nice. We had a tour at 8:30. Our bus driver, Bloke, kept us entertained and informed as we drove around the lovely bay. At one point he drove by his grandchildren’s home and all of us had to yell “Hello Tuppence and Thruppence”. The town of Dunedin has some charm but not the charm of Wellington. Luckily, our tour didn’t include the town. We were headed first for the Penguin Place, the Yellow Eyed Penguin Conservation Reserve. The Yellow Eyed Penguins are an endangered species, the rarest penguins on Earth and found only in New Zealand. The preserve has built a system of hides and tunnels for visitors to view the penguins. We walked in silence through trenches dug into the ground and covered with camouflage and we were eye level with the penguins. We saw about a dozen babies and only one adult. Most of the adults at that moment were swimming about 20 miles out into the sea to get food for their babies. They eat the fish, then go back to their nests and regurgitate the food for their young ones. They do this every day for the first 3 months of their offspring’s lives and then, without weaning the babies, they stop feeding them. The babies, who are now adolescents, are kicked out of the home and forced to live on their own. The adults then gorge themselves on food until they’re fat, then rest and party for a few months until its time to breed again. The preserve does not feed the penguins or control their lives in any way; all they do is band them, track them and observe them. They do have a hospital where they can care for them if they are sick or injured.

After this tour we traveled on to the Royal Albatross Centre which, you guessed it, is an albatross preserve. These birds, as adults, have a wing span of 10 feet. We were warned on the way up to the nests that it is rare to see an albatross actually flying. It was guaranteed that we would see birds sitting on their nests because there were several newborn chicks. As we were watching the nests, suddenly over the top of a hill came a huge bird, swooping down toward our viewing area. No one was prepared for this sight as we all screamed “Oh My God”. Our guide, Grahame, said “No, that’s not God, it’s an albatross and all of you should play the lottery tonight because this is a very rare sighting.” The bird circled our viewing booth about half dozen times before he landed. We were all breathless with excitement. It’s true that we were lucky to see it because later we asked our shipmates who had also gone to the preserve if they had seen an albatross flying and no other tour had seen it.

We visited the only castle in New Zealand and the best part of it was the views it gave of Dunedin and the harbor. On the way back to the ship we stopped in town to see the railroad station which featured mosaics made of Italian marble. We were exhausted by the time we got back, so much so that we skipped the Mardi Gras party that the ship threw last night.

Milford Sound

Yesterday we traversed Milford Sound. It is actually three sounds; Dusky Sound, Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound, which are all part of Fjordland National Park, one of the largest national parks in the world. The scenery is indescribable. It’s a series of majestic mountain ranges plunging into the sea. We were incredibly lucky because this area gets an average of 183 days of rainfall a year but it was clear and sunny with the temperature in the low 60s. Because of the rainfall, almost every surface of the hills in Dusky and Doubtful Sound is covered with trees, shrubs and moss-draped crevices. In the afternoon we entered Milford Sound, often referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World, which was the highlight of the day. Here the mountains are rocky with snow-covered peaks and scattered clumps of moss, ferns and trees. Waterfalls trickled out of the mountains into the sea. There is a 7-8 foot later of fresh water, under which is salt water, and the two don’t mix. The mountains are so close on either side of the ship that we felt we could almost reach out and touch them. In the morning people were out on the bow of the ship huddled in blankets with binoculars and cameras, braving the winds that felt much colder so close to water level. The ship had coffee and sweet rolls for everyone. In the afternoon the ship’s crew offered the passengers bowls of pea soup and cups of hot cider, which apparently is a tradition when sailing through Milford Sound. Our shore excursion specialist, Barbara, gave us a running commentary of what we were seeing and her lovely melodious voice added a wonderful atmosphere to this vision of grandeur. As I stood there contemplating the magnificence of this sight, it was impossible not to believe in a God that would give us such a glorious gift.

Today we are rockin’ and rollin’ on the sea. We’re traveling through an area that the Aussies and Kiwis call “the ditch”, which is the part of the Tasman Sea that connects New Zealand and Australia. So far this is a very rough passage. Water is sloshing out of the pool upstairs, practically flooding the decks around it. The outside Walkaround Deck is completely devoid of people because of the huge sea spray that engulfs the deck when we hit the waves. I think most of the older people are staying off their feet for fear of falling. I think its fun.

We have one more sea day before we reach Sydney so, until then, g’day mate.