A day off and a trip to Doubtful Sound. Well that was the plan. Myself and Chris got up early and were on the road to Queenstown at 6am. Parked my car in town and headed toward Te Anau, a small town about 2hours SW. Te Anau is the the gateway to Fiordland and the most famous of which is Milford Sound. However, our plan was to visit the more remote, slightly less travelled Doubtful Sound. As we all know the best laid plans are always broken. So on arrival to the tourist office in Te Anau, we found that the only trip of the day to Doubtful Sound had just left. How typical. It was rather amusing though, because we'd heard of this great two for the price of one local deal in one of the local newspapers. But to get it we had to prove we were a local. Of course as soon as either of us opened our mouths, well - it was clear we were a kiwi. However, spending the season in Wanaka we decided to chance our arms and ask if it was good enough proof, if we got Devin (my landlord, housemate) to call up and say that we were living here, would that be sufficient. They seemed to agree. After a few phone calls that was sorted. Only then did we find out the trip had just left. Milford Sound it was so. Back in the car and another 2 hour drive into Milford. My turn to drive. An hour into the drive and some 56 km of the 100 km journey - I look at the petrol gauge, it looks low. Hmmm, then it starts flashing - uh oh, I thought we'd enough petrol. Halfway there, we thought well not much point in turning back the nearest petrol station is 50 odd km in either direction. So on we plod, hearts in mouths, willing the car on. Popping the car in neutral at any and all possible times, to conserve petrol. I was beginning to panic as you might imagine. As I was popping the car in neutral, I managed to over the shoot the mark and hit reverse whilst going at 60KM an hour, not so good, damn automatic cars, what's that all about. I gave up and let Chris drive... For the next 20km we free wheeled down the valley road into Milford Sound. All around the hair pin bends. And cruised into Milford on the fumes of other people cars, we ran out of fumes a long way back. Went straight to the petrol station only to find that it (the only petrol station) was closed for servicing. Luckily they would be open later that afternoon.
The views of Milford Sound were worth the panic. Amazing fiordland. We took a 2 hour cruise out to the sea front and back again, passing all the wonderful glacier landscape. Apparently Milford sound was incorrectly named. It should be a fiord. A geographical different. But the name has stuck. The sides of the fiord are laiden with trees barely hanging onto the rocky cliff lines. The waterfalls line the sides of the cliffs with snowcapped mountains in the background. It truely is beautiful. On the way back we stopped at a few places, a temperate rainforest, the chasm, a little frozen stream. It was a long drive back. Boy was I tired by the end of the day. But it was certainly worth it.
Yesterday, I was back on my board again. Last week I delaminated the tail of it. Not a huge gash, but enough to warrant repair. Sasha, one of Devin's mates, kindly fixed it for me, only for it to delaminate again. So the second attempt at fixing it, he used glue that is used in aircraft. A flexible when dry glue. Perfect. Only catch is it took 6 days to dry. Not so good. But it got tested yesterday and going strong. YAY YAY :) Just as I thought the day was going really well, though, when we were packing up the car to go home, I realised I had left the handbrake on and it froze the right back wheel. No movement what so ever out of the well. It took alot of reverse / forward action to finally free it up. The manager of Cardrona, managed to eventually free it for us. DOH, I promise, I will never use the handbrake again, even if it is for all the right reasons. Parked on an icy hill !!
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