Days 11-13

Fox Glacier
see all photos »

Unlike my optimistic husband, I have been known from time to time to be a Donna-downer. I say this because up until this point all our experiences have been incredible and we have been like giddy travelers. Knowing Lutz, he will only have good things to say about the last couple of days, but Donna-downer will reflect on the not-so-pleasant experiences.

Two weeks into our trip, 4 flights, 4 boat rides, over 8 different sleeping locations and countless hours of driving later, the weary travelers finally got hit with the possibly inevitable: sickness. It came at the end of our Milford Sound day. It was pouring rain from morning till night, and we ended up doing 6 hours of driving. I say this now because we are safe and sound, but let me tell you what kind of driving this was. This was white-knuckled driving with ice, snow, pouring rain, windy, two-lane roads and no barriers between us and the oncoming cars. The rain was the kind where you don’t even bother listening to music because you can’t hear it anyway over the pounding water on the car. It was that kind of rain. We took turns driving, but the passenger never really got to rest because they couldn’t take their eyes off the road either. You feel like even if you are not driving, it takes 4 eyes to drive in those conditions. But with lots and lots of prayer, we made it through the day safely.

Two weeks into our trip, 4 flights, 4 boat rides, over 8 different sleeping locations and countless hours of driving later, the weary travelers finally got hit with the possibly inevitable: sickness.

Franz Josef Glacier
see all photos »

Day 11 began as we left Queenstown for our 4 hour drive to Lutz’s Mecca, Milford Sound. We found our little lodge and the young, jolly receptionist informed us the road going in and out of the Sound would be closing at 4p. He said he didn’t know if or when it would open the next day, so we’d be stuck there for an undetermined amount of time. We had our longest driving day the following day of 7-8 hours to Fox Glacier, so we decided to go immediately out on a boat to see the Sound and then hit the road before it closed. I have to admit though I was worried. The storm was expected to be pretty bad, and as I looked out of the car windows there was so much low fog that I wondered if we would even get to see the beautiful natural wonder we drove all the way down here to see.

IMG_2049.JPG
see all photos »

Although visibility was less than ideal and the rain had no end in sight, we boarded the “Lady of the Sound” and headed out on our 2-hour tour. If you didn’t already know, I am HORRIBLE with boats. Actually, pretty much anything with motion. I have always had bad motion sickness as a kid but luckily I think I’m becoming more used to it. Anyway, as I grabbed a seat at the window with a hot cup of tea, Lutz donned his rain jacket, beanie, hood, gloves and his camera and headed out to the bow of the ship. This is where he pretty much stayed the whole time, either on the very top of the ship or all around it. There were some people who would venture outside to see the landscape out from behind a foggy glass window, but no one matched my sweetie’s enthusiasm and hard-core love of the Sound. He finally came inside when we were ending our tour, soaked and cold. But man were the views worth it! Supposedly there is no real “ideal” whether in which to see the Sound. If you see it in the summer, you get the clear views and warm weather. However in the rain, you get to see the hundreds of waterfalls that appear only in heavy rainfall. Being a rainforest, the latter of the two days is more common in Milford.

Milford Sound
see all photos »

We got to see a great natural wonder that day, yet by the end we felt the toll the weather had taken on our bodies. After seeing the Sound we drove 2 more hours back up and down the icy mountain to Te Anau where we found a little Italian restaurant and crashed inside. I could not stop shaking, even though I had on a down jacket and was 2 feet from a heater. Lutz just sprawled out on the bench in our booth. We looked and felt terrible, but we didn’t care. It was nice to be inside a warm place and off the road. I could not stop shivering until I had downed a hot bowl of minestrone soup. Our bodies ached from our over-worked muscles being tired of the cold. Then began the cough. Lutz’s theory about sickness is to sweat it out, literally. So when we went to bed that night we layered ourselves in hopes that we would wake in the morning anew. And despite having to bear the horrendous discomfort of waking up in the middle of the night super hot and sweating, it actually worked! We felt much better, at least for a while…

Water falls!
see all photos »

Lutz:

I will add just one more thing to Donna ‘s report of the Milford Sound (she did a pretty good job). I just wanted to re-iterate how beautiful this place is. First the drive in is incredible. Fiords (the geo feature that we were seeing in Fiordland National Park) are essentially canyons carved our by glaciers. So when you drive in you enter a shrinking valley with snow-capped cliffs closing in. The immensity of the terrain really belittles you (in a good way). You feel like you’re a little bug tiptoeing through a land of sleeping giants. Then you hit the Sound (which we learned is a misnomer, the geologically correct name is Milford Fiord not Sound). Take the feature I mentioned before and change the valley floor to still water, and as Donna mentioned, thousands of waterfalls cascading off the weeping rocks. Donna is right in calling this place a Mecca. Definitely a spiritual journey every nature lover should take.

IMG_1953.JPG
see all photos »

Now, on to the glaciers. As with the Sound we had to work hard against nature to really enjoy what it had to offer. Before we checked into our hotel after a long day’s drive, we caught a quick glimpse of Fox Glacier from a lookout point before the sunset. Both glaciers seem completely out of place because you approach them from a rainforest only a few feet above sea level. (Although, the rain forest backdrop makes for some incredible contrast which our pictures do a horrible job at capturing). From our lookout spot we could see a good length of the glacier. Our visible portion had two distinct portions, a beautiful, almost fluorescent-blue portion with white and dirty-white below it. The glacier picks up a lot of boulder and erosion leftover that are deposited on the bottom.  I think the noteworthy feeling when looking at it is eerie. You’re looking at a green mountainside that has alien substance taking half of it over. After a quick look we went back to the lodge and called it a night.

IMG_1948.JPG
see all photos »

Day 12

The next morning it rained. We hoped it would stop on our short 30 min drive from Fox glacier to Franz Josef glacier, but instead it started raining harder. So we donned on our rain gear, some foolish confidence, and pushed forward to our treasure. For those of you reading between the lines, “pushed forward” does mean; Lutz persuading Donna telling her this is a once in lifetime thing, and that getting sick from the wet and cold would totally be worth it. Now several boxes of tissue and coughing fits later, I still stand by it… I think. Anyways, the rained helped us complete the 45min in probably 35min. Now at the glacier face you are once again belittled by the size of this thing. The glacier terminus wall must be 40 feet high at its peak. The other humbling thing is knowing that any second a 20-ton block of ice can break lose and smash you to pieces. (I read there is a large volume of water trapped in the ice that when freed create instant flash floods). I think the keeper of the glacier may overemphasize the dangers to keep people from being stupid. Although some may not believe it, all the hooplah actually kept me at bay. I did not cross the red rope and resisted the temptation to run up and touch it, climb it, jump on it and so forth. So I admired and stood in awe at a safe distance. Then ran back to catch up with Donna who rushed to get out the cold and rain.

IMG_1943.JPG
see all photos »

Donna:

Lutz kept running ahead of me to get to the car, get out some dry clothes for us, and heat it up. After trashing our rental car with heaps of wet clothing, we set off on our drive from Franz Josef to Picton, which was probably the worst travel day of my life. Not only were we exhausted and soaked, we were sick. Real sick. I could hardly breathe and my nose was raw from sneezing. I wanted so badly to sleep, as my eyes were tired and heavy, but the road was too unnerving so I couldn’t. Lutz had these body-convulsions when he coughed that just sounded horrible and looked painful. Buuuuutt we had a 6 hour drive that day. So, we grabbed some medicine at the local store and hit the road.

Scary driving conditions
see all photos »

The highlight of that day did come at night, as I had been praying and praying for safety and asking God for good weather. By this point we had spent 3 days in non-stop rain. Lutz and I finished our first book-on-tape, Brennan Manning’s “Ragamuffin Gospel” and were able to connect in a great conversation after it ended. The other blessing was just as it began to get dark, the rain stopped and the treacherous road straightened. The horrors of the day’s driving were over and God gave us a clear and easy drive for our last hour of the trip. We had survived the South Island.

We checked into our hotel in Picton, which we had high hopes for after seeing it’s cool round bed. However it ended up being the worst nights sleep we’d had in a while! It was ironic too because I was just telling Lutz how surprised I was that after sleeping in so many different beds my back/neck hadn’t hurt at all. Well the next morning changed that for sure. So much for the cool bed…

Day 13

We woke up the next morning, took it slow, and went to catch our interisland ferry at 1p from the South Island to the North Island. We are just coming into Wellington, NZ’s capital as I write this and we will be here for 4 days. It will be nice to have a constant place to lay our heads for a while. The rest of the day’s plans will be room-arrest: get inside, get warm, watch an in-house movie, order pizza… and sweat it out.