Day 51 – 53 : Te Anau / Milford Sound : “I’m an uncle … again.”By Lee

Situated on the southwest coast, Milford Sound is one of New Zealand’s many “sounds” pocked around the coastline. Acting like tar-pits to unwary tourists, enticing them with their stark beauty and kitschy cruises, they’re a popular location for locales and visitors to the country alike.

As we’re unfortunately unable to just drive across the mountain range, and it’s 200km away from Queenstown, we set off early and make good time.

The rented car is a newish Ford Focus, a million miles away from the NIssan Pulsar I drove/wrangled with back in Auckland a few weeks back. It’s a totally different driving experience.

The drive to Te Anau, the closest town to Milford Sound, takes a few hours. Luckily it’s not an onerous experience, mostly due to the fact that, this time, we don’t have a car that sounds like a washing machine screaming into the wind. We share the driving and hit the road as the New Zealand weather tries to make up its mind, bathing us in equal amounts of drizzle and sunshine.

We drive through a mountainous region reminiscent of man’s primeval existence. At one point we pass between two towering peaks as waterfalls stream down their sides effortlessly, threatening to drown our path yet never seeming to reach us. Toward the end of the trek we drive through a tunnel ground out from the very mountain we’re passing through. Unlike other tunnels that have been adorned with tiles and lighting fixtures, this is literally a bored hole straight through millions of tonnes of granite, craggy ceilings and an abundance of signage telling us to turn on lights (or risk driving into said tunnel) a constant reminder that this is engineering at a purely basic and functional level.

We stop in Te Anau for some awesome ham and cheese sandwiches before deciding to make a dash for Milford Sound, the promise of a 3pm cruise our reward. Luckily we make it though by now it’s teeming down. We book the excursion and run to the ferry building where odd Chinese children are found posing like demented cartoon characters to the delight of equally demented parents. Our ship sails into the circular cove and, eventually, diligently battling sand-flies as we go, we board.

The Spirit of the Sound is a sizable vessel and complimented by a young (and not hungover – yet. Oktoberfest starts that very night) crew under the command of a smoky voiced and silver-haired captain happy to talk us through the wonders of New Zealand’s largest and most famous sound.

We immediately discover that we’re not in a sound at all. Sounds are created by a river burrowing its way toward the ocean. Milford Sound, however, was actually created by glacial movement and hence is actually more accurately a fjord. Amazingly, the original name for the area was Milford (named after a place in Wales) Haven. Apparently this wasn’t good enough, and at some point they changed the moniker to Milford Sound. Alas, when they discovered their mistake with respect to the location’s geological origins, changing the name again wasn’t an option.

The weather is awful with rain and wind whipping against the vessel at all angles. According to the crew-mates, this is actually a better scenario in which to view the area as the rain creates artificial waterfalls all along the sound’s cliff-faces. On a dry day you might see further, but not as much activity.

We sail for about an hour, ducking in and out of both permanent and transient waterfalls, to the mouth of the sound and the Tasman Sea beyond. It’s here the captain does a u-turn and we head back towards the harbour. This time, however, we’re joined by a trio of dolphins who take up residency right in front of the boat. The captain slows the craft a little as we pour out into the driving rain to hang precariously over the prow of the ship and take enough photos to fill a nature book.

The three dolphins skim beneath the surface of the rising waves, frequently launching themselves through the froth and into 360 degree rolls. I’m shocked at just how muscular they are; my previous impression of dolphins being the family-friendly playmates-of-the-sea notion and not such specimens of amazing girth and power. Of course, we’ve already seen dolphins at Abel Tasman but these guys are like the Globetrotters of the porpoise race.They cross-over one another beneath the surface and take turns dazzling us with acrobatic displays, never seeming to get bored as we make our way back to base.

During our return to the harbour we also stop at a rock outcropping and witness some seals lazing about in the haze. One seems quite content to look toward us and flap a solitary flipper in our direction in what I assume is part wave/part dismissive gesture. He’s lounging. He doesn’t need a boat full of random foreigners to crash his down-time.

As we approach the end of the cruise we talk to one of the crew-mates, an Oisin from Blachardstown, a town literally located only a couple of miles from where I live in Dublin. He’s been in Milford Sound for five years, and with a Kiwi girlfriend for four of them, has no intention of permanently moving back to Ireland. I echo his sentiment and inform him that what he remembers as an idyllic land of Guinness and high-adventure has now been superseded by abject political corruption, out of control joblessness and a transport network European political figures lambaste as how not to do it when welcoming new countries into the Union. He says he’s coming home anyway next year for a while and will see what happens. He might get a job. He might not. I tell him I expect he’ll be back in New Zealand within a month. It’s that bad. He comps us a couple of free cups of adequate enough soup; the Irish currency of assisting a fellow countryman at any opportunity possible (the more illegal/rebellious the better) seemingly not affected by the Old Country’s economic collapse.

We change out of our wet clothes in the back of the Focus like a pair of contortionists after one too many glasses of wine. Eventually, we’re dry and heading back to Te Anau where we check in to a forgettable hostel (they all seem to just blur into one another at this point) and partake of some dinner at a local pub. It’s adequate if nothing spectacular with the highlight being the monumental size of the mullet on the waiter (dressed in a rugby jersey I might add) who assists us when it comes to settling the bill.

It is now, by our time, October 14th, the due date of my sister Geraldine who went and did the unimaginable and got herself pregnant ten months before this trip is due to end. It was always an unhappy consequence of us travelling for three months that I would miss the birth of my second nephew/niece and my parent’s second grandchild. As I only have one sister, and I’ve already stated my childless status in a subsequent post, such an event is a really big deal. I’m very close to my sister and the proud Godfather to her first son, the ever-amazing Adam, so the second addition to her burgeoning brood was something I desperately wanted to be around for. Unfortunately, this trip has been in the planning for the best part of a year, long before baby #2 was in motion, and missing out on his or her first few weeks of life turned out to be sad yet unavoidable.

I text Ger and she replies that she’s up, packed for the hospital and about to be taken in for her planned section. Adam was a monster baby, weighing in somewhere in the region of 10lb (side note: as much as Ireland has embraced the metric system in favour of the archaic empirical flavour, we still note babies’ weight in pounds and ounces and our height in feet and inches) so there would be no messing around this time. Apparently I’d have a new nephew or niece by her lunchtime which I translate into midnight in my alien off-world time-zone.

I charge my phone and lay awake all night waiting for the informative vibration but nothing comes. The next day we get up (well, I was pretty much already up thanks to the sleepless night) and I’m starting to come apart at the seams wondering what the hell is going on. We head into town and return to the small restaurant where we were treated to those delicious ham and cheese sandwiches upon our arrival to Te Anu and order up coffees, hot chocolates and pies. I had already sent a text to my brother-in-law inquiring about what was going on and if things had gone all 101 Dalmatians, my sister up all night with kids jumping out of her like she was a clown-car but, understandably, I don’t receive a reply. It’s been twenty-hours since I’ve heard anything, twenty since the time the newborn should have made its entrance.

Borderline psychotic with worry at this point, I call my mother using my mobile (I still have no idea what this call cost though I expect to be writing articles for months to cover it) and I learn that Ger’s bump has been unceremoniously bumped itself numerous times throughout the night and the baby is actually due in about an hour. With a heart-rate gradually decreasing, we leave the café and sit in the car at the edge of a lake and await the final announcement.

Without any further delay, Dean Ryan is born a healthy 8lbs and 7oz within the following hour. I receive a picture on my phone and marvel at how much he looks like his older brother when he was born; albeit slightly smaller. Happy that mother and baby are well, we hit the road for the long journey back.

On the final leg to Queenstown, a police car pulls out after we pass, follows, and with sirens flashing, signals us over. I’m clocked at doing 117kph in a 100kph zone. I apologise and stress that I, honestly, didn’t realise I’d gone over that much. The speed-trap is at the bottom of a hill, I was going no faster than anyone else and blah blah blah, it doesn’t matter. I accept that I was speeding and wait meekly for the ticket. It’s at this point the officer asks why I drove over the median line while he was following. I didn’t realise I had but it was probably because I was looking in my mirror wondering if he wanted me to pullover (as it wasn’t abundantly clear if it was me he was following). If I had gone over, it was marginal and – hey – who drives erratically with a police-car behind them? Doesn’t matter. He hits me with a “failing to stay left” infringement – another $150 dollars on top of the $120 for speeding. It’s utter horseshit but there’s nothing I can do. The fact that he caused me to go over the unbroken line in the first place is beside the point in his book.

I drive back in silence, shell-shocked that a figure in authority could be so narrow-minded and harsh to a visitor to his country who, in real terms, had broken a speed limit by less than 20kph coming over a large hill. It depresses me, and with the torrent of emotion still in my system from worrying about my sister, I’m dumbfounded and enraged at the same time. If I say anything I fear I won’t be able to stop screaming so I concentrate on staying exactly at the speed-limit and focus on getting out of this god-forsaken country. After such a nice time in New Zealand, the experience is somewhat tarnished by one cop with a point to prove. Ironically, now regimentally watching the speedometer (to the point of watching the road less than I likely should be) for the remainder of the trip, I still manage to stray over 100kph on the hilly stretches. Proving that, even on the back of a huge speeding fine and with an almost anal respect to the law, it’s still very easy to stray over the limit at times on New Zealand’s undulating roads.

I contemplate not paying the fine. More than once on the way back and the next day I come to the conclusion that the whole country can go fuck themselves and I’m not paying it on principle. They can chase me back to Ireland for their $270 worth of scam money. Sheila is the voice of reason and talks me down, agreeing that I got railroaded and that the best thing to do is simply let it go and not have it hanging over me. Ultimately, I buckle and pay it at a local bank; a fine I’m pretty sure I could have gotten away with never paying; especially considering the genius couldn’t even write my home address down correctly. At this stage, it doesn’t matter. These things happen and, on the day of Dean’s arrival, I decide that I don’t want these negative feelings consuming me to the point of revulsion.

We get back to Queenstown and circle for a parking space outside of the car rental place like an old buzzard waiting for someone to die. After a third pass I manage to glue the car into a spot right out in front. The girl behind the desk asks if I have filled it full of petrol to which I heartily confirm. She decides to turn the ignition anyway to make sure I’m not a sneaky foreigner who likes to lie at every opportunity presented. The car jolts forward and she gets the shock of her life. “Let me guess. You drove. Why do men always leave the car in gear?” she asks. I’m in no mood. “Because if the hand-brake fails, it won’t roll down the fucking hill”, I retort in as pleasant a voice I can muster while keeping my fists clenched at my sides.

It takes hours for me to wade through the funk of my encounter with the nazi cop but another spot of Mexican food at Sombreros seems to soothe the burning enmity that pulses through my veins like wild-fire. Though that could have been the effect of the awesome nachos.

We walk back along the lake-side and sleep our last night in New Zealand. The following morning we purchase some Internet access and I frantically mail JC, my friend who we’re staying with for a few days in Sydney, just to remind him that we are in fact on our way. We take the bus to the airport, and with an almost casual deference to flight security, we board and fly to Australia.

Tags: dolpins, Mildford Sound, Te Anau