Eating before boating - damned if you do, damned if you don't

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Greetings from Te Anau, the gateway to the largest national park in New Zealand. We're about to go on an overnight cruise on Milford Sound. Te Anau is a town of about 3,000, on pictureque Lake Te Anau.

Last night we took a boat across Lake Te Anau, to the Te Ana-Au caves. With a guide and about 10 other people, we toured through the caves, mostly by way of a small boat. The caves house thousands of glow worms, and in most parts of the pitch-black caves, they are the only source of light. The caves are filled with gushing waterfalls and swirling pools.

The tour was at 6:45, and we had eaten a late lunch, so we decided that we'd eat dinner after the glowworm caves. Based on our last experience of eating before getting on a boat, it seemed wise. Unfortunately, when we returned to town at about 9:15, we found that all four of the restaurants that touted the were "open til late" were closed. Beer and wine was still available, but the only food we could find was frozen pizza at The Moose Bar. (There are no moose in NZ that we know of, nor any other native land mammals, so why the bar is called the Moose is a mystery). So we went back to our hotel, ate cheese and crackers and watched Lord of the Rings on TV. (It's a national law, we think, to broadcast this film at least once a week.)

Earlier in the day we traveled to Te Anau from Wanaka via Queenstown. Qtown is the hub of all the "extreme sports" tourism that NZ has recently become famous for. Since we were not interested in bungy jumping, jet boating or sky diving, we chose not to stay long. We came into town around lunch time, and found a ridiculously crowded town center, filled with too many cars and too-narrow streets. Finding parking was a challenge, so we took at 15 minute spot, grabbed kebab sandwiches from the take-away, and got right back on the road.

The night before we left Wanaka, we took the advice of someone we met at Le Bons Bay Backpackers and visited Cinema Paradiso for dinner and a movie. The food was pretty good, but what we'll remember most is the beer (Geri drank a local lager called Cardrona) and the chocolate chip cookie fresh out of the oven at intermission (we'll let you guess who got that.) The movie was "Sin City," a very gory and violent adaptation of a series of comic books/illustrated novels. The seating in the theater was primarily old couches and lazy boys, but one lucky couple got to sit in the front seat of an old VW bug convertible.

Now we're off to Milford Sound, where we expect to see more incredible scenery. Language has failed us in describing all the places we've seen. You can only say something is beautiful, incredible, or amazing so many times before the words become meaningless. And photos only capture a fraction of what we've experienced. Anyone reading this: you just have to come to New Zealand.

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Photos

Mt Aspiring
View of Mt. Aspiring from across Lake Wanaka.

Giant Maze
Brian in the mile-long maze at Puzzling World in Wanaka.