Donald Trump over the Fjords

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Days 29 & 30 26-27 February - Te Anau & Fjordland - South Island, New Zealand

The weather wasn’t encouraging, nor was the forecast. You come all this way to one of the most breathtaking areas of the world and it’s misty, drizzly and you can’t see much beyond the Sunny’s bonnet. That’s partly because it’s 7 in the morning. Dawn hasn’t quite broken and eyelids are still at half-mast after not enough sleep. We begin to say the unsayable to each other: Is this going to be worth it?

We’re setting off to do the 120km from Te Anau to Milford Sound to catch the cruise boat to see the place everyone says is unmissable. Well, it may be unmissable, but we’re going to miss it cos you can’t see a bloody thing for the mist and cloud. This pessimism lasts for about an hour. It’s light, but as we go over the ‘Divide’ the sky is a bit clearer and we see a patch of blue. Twenty minutes later, we’re like wow man, this is awesome. (Not the 'awesome' which a temp waitress said when I asked for a coffee the other day. That was just her word for ‘Certainly…Coming right up) This was truly awesome. Put all that in bold. This was truly awesome.

Lower down, the Milford road is wedged between towering mountains and winds past waterfalls and over streams becoming a river . The sky was now almost cloudless and we were feeling good - and smug. We’d been advised to get there early before the hordes of vans and coaches descend and clog the road and the tunnel, which spews you out on to a vast panorama of zig-zag descending road and impossibly steep, sheer cliffs. You don’t see the water till the last half mile and then begin to realize this is a special place. Some very smart boardwalk decking separates the 1997 terminal building (= booking desks and waiting area) from the cruise boats. Smugness factor increased when we boarded, along with only four others, a boat which could comfortably accommodate a hundred or more.

I’ve found it hard writing the previous paragraph - I’ll have to give up on the next bit. See the photos. Haven’t seen fjords before, so have nothing to score Milford Sound against. It was simply stunningly beautiful. All that space, light, sea and the cliffs. See ? I feel totally inadequate in starting to describe it. I won’t. Just to say that the skipper reckoned we had the best weather of the month. The young German crew member had only seen dolphins by the boat twice before - today was the third time. We saw seals out on the rocks - lots of them. They don’t like the sandflies - they go underwater when they’re about. The much-feared sandflies, who had been planning an attack of Pearl Harbour proportions on my sensitive flesh during my own months of planning, called off the raid. What - he’s sprayed his legs, arms and neck ? With jungle strength? C’mon on! Are you man or mozzie ? Let’s go!! - But sir, our intelligence reports that he’s taken some anti-hystamine as well, as a precaution.- He may be a Pommie wimp, but he’s cunning. We’ll never make a real impact, even if we get through. Very well, Biggles, we’’ll go back to base. Mine’s a flat white with two sugars and an Aussie’s ear.

The return to Te Anau under the impossibly blue sky was punctuated by mini stops at places, any one of which would have been worth a two hour journey. I’ll mention only one. Lake Gunn. A pull in car park. A shingle beach. Water lapping at edge. Rudimentary picnic in paradise - yes, I know - another bloody paradise.

We cut out some of the pull-in stops to get back to Te Anau early enough to investigate a scenic flight to Doubtful Sound, the other big destination from Te Anau. At 3.40pm I asked our friendly motel man, Craig, where to try. A phone call, 400 yards walk and twenty minutes later I took off from the lake on a 40 minute flight. Mile for mile, compared with Emirates, the price I paid Alan, the all-in-one wonderful pilot, office manager and re-fueller, would have got me from Heathrow to Dubai, or at least out of Europe, but it was worth every penny. The in-flight catering was non-existent. Baggage consisted of sunglasses and camera. I sat beside Alan, with Paul, the other passenger, a healthy looking long distance walker from Coventry occupying two or three of the other 5 seats. Royal Yacht Britannia this morning. Donald Bloody Trump this afternoon. (Note - Paul hadn’t actually walked from Coventry - but he had just walked the Kepler Track. It would take us about five minutes to fly over what Paul had taken three days to walk.)

Words cannot describe this trip adequately. We flew in a loop from Te Anau to Doubtful Sound (Looked for the Endeavour and James Cook , doubting whether it was worth exploring the sound - no sign of him, again). I’d never flown in a small plane before. I didn’t realize how much closer to the stuff below you feel. This not because of altitude. I’m sure Alan left enough room between his wingtips and the mountains we flew past and over. It was like the difference on the road between sitting on a bus and in the sidecar of a motorbike. For Emirates’ Airbus, read ‘bus’; for Alan’s six-seater Fokker (sorry I don’t even known the model) read motorbike & sidecar. It was more Biggles than Top Gun. Over the headsets we all wore, Alan gave us a brilliant commentary about the terrain below us, whist Paul and I were so amazed that we could hardly utter much more than ‘Wow, amazing!’ Every time one of us had a semi-intelligent question to ask, we’d forget what we were saying and say ’Wow’ again. The camera worked overtime, as it had done all day, and when the battery inevitably went AWOL, it forced me to just look and take it in. Tip: If you’re ever in Te Anau and want a similar flight, find Alan near town centre at lakeside. Look for ‘Wings and Water’. Pay what he asks. Steal the money. Just do it. The best $295 I’ve ever spent. And don’t leave your spare camera battery at the bloody motel.

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