Queenstown, Milford Sound and Mount Cook - farewell to the Kiwis


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Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Milford Sound
August 17th 2010
Published: August 17th 2010
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As most of you know, I’ve travelled to quite a few places in my life. I’ve been all over the show: from the magical Ruwenzori Mountains of Uganda and Congo to the fantastic Pantanal and Amazon river in Brasil, from the lovely islands of Indonesia to the ancient cities of Europe, from the spectacular South of Chile to the grandiose North of Iceland. On all these journeys, of course, I have seen some pretty marvelous spots, some of them on my own face.

I have a particular fondness for mountain landscapes. There’s just something endlessly mysterious about them for me. Some of the most memorable moments in my life have been staring up at some distant peak and seeing some landscape there that conjured up a feeling of belonging and mythical memory inside me. It’s more than just the colossal scale and the staggering timeless beauty. It’s more than the silence that can drop so suddenly, the distant crack of tumbling ice somewhere in the clouds up above, more than the mythical forests cloaking the world in a dreamy pelt, more than the endless shifting cloudscapes, the endlessly morphing personalities. Like people, mountains, to me, look different from every angle: they roar off into the distance of my mind, and as I stare up at the wonderful landscapes that seem esoteric and wistful, conjuring up long-forgotten mists of childhood, all I can do is allow my jaw to drop, whisper superlatives and try helplessly to suck in all this grandeur as if drinking this in through my eyes will heal me and feed me and make me into something grander than I am.

Man, have I walked and climbed and cycled up around and through some mountains. It all started back with ‘Biffer’ Swan, the old Geography and Woodwork teacher who formed a Mountain Walking club for his students, and he took our mountain walking club clambering up Cym Idwal in the pissing rain. Since those heady days as a fifteen year old miscreant, I’ve walked up many of Britain’s main and finest peaks, I’ve cycled through the heart of many: across their wonderful mountain passes. I’ve climbed mountains in Africa, South America, Asia, Europe, and North America. I’ve done multi-day hikes through some of the most famous and beautiful ranges in the World.

All of this to introduce my next comment, to measure it carefully, to avoid hyperbole and the tyranny of the present - what we’re doing now is always ‘the best ever’, isn’t it? We’re always moving onwards and upwards (except perhaps in some occasional, somber, drunken evenings when the serendipitous tides of time and our insecure feelings synchronize balefully, or at four AM after disturbing dreams ruffle the serenity of our picture-postcard, nine-to-five lives for a moment; during these times when the veil of illusion is lifted, like cloud from a hidden mountain, we perhaps may realize that the present isn’t always the best, that perhaps our forward drive towards better and shinier may not be as untroubled and clear as we thought, that in the formless incoherence of the night lies a deeper and uglier truth about ourselves and our time).

Well, let me tell you what I’ve been thinking for the last three marvelous days: that these mountains in the South of New Zealand are the most powerful, most scenic, most outrageous, most astounding, most picture-postcard beautiful, most achingly gorgeous, most stunningly picturesque, mysteriously fabulous, fantastic, awe inspiring, magical, potent mountains I’ve ever seen. They’re so steep. They rear up into the sky at impossible angles. They absorb the sky like only mountains in dreams have ever done before.

I’m not trying to start a pissing contest here. I mean Mount Ranier, Kilimanjaro, Meru, the Mulanje Massif, the Nepalese Himalayas, the Rockies, the list could go on and on, each a fabulous example or examples of majestic mountain scenery. But, good Lord, that journey to Milford Sound from Queenstown, Queenstown itself, and the area around Mount Cook, they really would take some beating.

I decided, after some thought, that the best way, as well as the fairest way, to express it was to say that I have never seen mountain scenery more spectacular than this: that every human who has the wherewithal should attempt a pilgrimage to these young, jutting, mischievous, majestic, mysterious mountains at least once in their lives. That here there is something profound. If God ever had a garden, it might well be here. I will never forget craning my neck up at these vast, almost vertical slopes, the distance swimming into unreal perspectives. I just couldn’t stop looking! I will exhaust superlatives, and then chuck this baby out as my final blog of the season.
What a perfect way for the trip to close with three days of the most scenically wonderful surroundings to be found on this planet. Along with Uluru, these three days were the scenic highlight of the entire eight week trip. Thank God I decided to come here. To think I might not have come had it not been for the gathering cloud awaiting me in sunny Somerville! Every cloud has a silver lining, even one as complex and multi-faceted as the one I begin the process of dealing with starting on Thursday (with a trip to the dentist!).

I met a couple of fun people on the wonderful Milford Sound trip: a chap I called ‘Oz’, and a woman named Hannah, an attractive short-haired blonde who runs a backpacker hotel in Queenstown. She had never before been to Milford Sound, despite sending tourists there every day on tours, so she chose this day to see it for herself. What a great decision: amazing scenery, spectacular weather changing from low cloud to blue sky, and sightings of seals, dolphins and rare, endangered penguins from the cruise. What a day! However, other than these two, and other than accidentally bumping into my bus driver friends on the final day trip to Mount Cook, I deliberately avoided being too social in this final phase of the trip: I really wanted time to process what I was seeing and experiencing through a filter of the issues that continue to invade my subconscious unbidden (at four AM) all too frequently.

I am facing an intensely complex series of interconnected life-decisions back in Boston, and I’ve been studiously avoiding thinking about it for most of this trip, either by immersing myself, for example, into my brother’s life, or the lives of the people I meet on the way. I decided to invert this attention for this final epic chapter of this year’s trip: it really is a thorny thicket I’m walking into, with dental and health issues, apartment issues, job issues, relationship/friendship issues and website issues all mixed together in an inter-connected perfect storm of shite. I’m going to need to try to sort things out, take small steps, one step at a time, etc. Hopefully, things that seem so tangled and impervious from a distance might start to un-entangle, for better or for worse, once I get back.
Gazing up at those fabulous mountains I was absorbing all kinds of messages, all kinds of metaphorical impressions about dealing with the vagaries of life: its challenges, its vast complexity, its cold and unfeeling, colossal, empty beauty. There am I: miserable ant scuttling through the beauty, just ‘minga’, as the Indigenous Australians says, making decisions without a guide, moving towards the cliff that awaits us all one day, wondering about what to do next. Is this a time for change, or for consolidation?

What clues did the mountains provide, if any? Was it enough to just gaze up in wonder and feel small?
Was it enough to just soak up the metaphorical wonder and think? What should I do with this new philosophical foodstuff?

I know.

I’m going down the street to the movies to eat bad food, rubber neck at some cute Aussie chicks and watch some Hollywood rubbish and hopefully take a good crap somewhere on the way.

Now that’s what I call retail therapy.

Can’t take everything too seriously can you?
No worries, mate!

See you on the flypaper…



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17th August 2010

Breathetaking
Well sounds and definitely looks so amazing.....great photos but I am sure they do not do it justice. Great way to end your journey for sure. wonderful blog this summer as usual and thanks for sharing. Safe travels home.........see you soon. Lucille
17th August 2010

WOW!!!!!!!!!
Amazing, breathtaking photos, I'm sure they don't do it justice though. Actually being there and seeing it..............WOW Glad you replaced your camera........ wonderful way to end your journey. Thanks for sharing with us once again. Safe travels back. Lucille

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