Heaven!

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I could have a bit of a lie in today as my trip was booked for 10.15am. I went to the post office first and bought a box to post my stuff home in. Unfortunately it seems the box itself cost about as much as filling it and sending it from Japan so it seems I am stuck with my stuff unless I can find a reasonable way to send it home...

I caught the boat from Te Anau village up the Te Anau Lake. The guy was quite entertaining and knowledgeable about the area and said it was something like the largest body of water in Oceana (or Australasia...) as it is so deep and the other big lakes are quite shallow in comparison.

When we got to the cave area I was first off the boat as the school trip with us all wanted to make sure they were together! So I was in the first group that went walking down the cave and saw all the cool waterfalls and then we got in a boat and they switched all the lights off! Argh! Then we sailed along into the caves and saw the glow worms - which obviously we could just see the glow and not the worms.

After that we had a video and talk about the glow worms and then back on the boat to come back. The worms live all their lives in the caves and most of their lives they are worms. When they are worms their bums glow when they are hungry and then they let out this long train of spit which also glows. Poor flies and stuff think it's the light at the end of the tunnel and fly into it! then the glow worm pulls it up and injects it with venom which turns its innards to mush. Then it eats it slowly... like over a few weeks sometimes!! WOW! And after about 9 months of that the worm finally turns into a fly with no mouth and no bum and just mates and lays eggs and dies... hmmm what a life!

So, then I jump in the car and drive like the wind to Milford Sounds! Unfortunately it had started becoming a little wet by then... well, it was raining and cloudy and so I couldn't see the high mountains... boooo, but, hey, it meant that I could get there in 2 hours like I was supposed to! Got drenched walking to the boat but then on the boat, free coffee and get warm!

The trip round teh bay was fabulous! Lots of people got off the boatr but only about 25 of us go on and apart from me and a family no one else really wanted to stand outside and look at the view! MAD!! The view was still pretty amazing and fabulous waterfalls that you can't see if it's not raining. When we were just at the end of the 'river' bit and into the sea the weather got way better and then we could see seals really close up! We also went close to a waterfall that Maori said if a woman got splashed by the spray she would wake up looking 10 years younger. Well, I must look about minus 10 now as me and the family got drenched! At one point I had been on my own on the top deck for ages and the captain came over the tannoy to say 'The lady at the back of the top deck, you must have some great photographs!' I think he was hinting to others to get out there but no one did. I went to talk to him at the end and he was saying how people complain when it's raining... sheesh!

Anyway, then drove back to the Te Anau and my lovely big motel room!

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