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Published: July 21st 2006
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Sheepish Cookmeister
Eeeeeehhhhhh i'm surrounded by sheeps likes. Hiya!
After Queenstown we bombed onto Milford Sound, a place in which Jonny's sister described as "the most beautiful place she's been to ever": so expectations were high. The drive was as scenic as we've come to expect in this country, at one stage we were held up by a hurd of sheep- over a hundred of them walking down the middle of the road! "Get a photo, Get a photo!" Will screamed, so we did.
As the crow flies Milford doesn't look that far from Queenstown, but we had to take a big loop to get to it: the drive was a pleasure though. As we got nearer to our destination the weather and scenery took a dramatic turn, all of a sudden we were surrounded by snowcapped mountains: signs warned us not to stop because we were in Avalanche territory! At one stage we went through a tunnel, which took 17 years for them to build.
After checking into our hostel we had a quick game of cluedo, which i won with my first guess! I then proceeded to have my worst performance at Pool ever in the local pub, before heading back to the hostel
"She's a Waterfall"
At Milford Sound Fjord at 10.45, just before the village's electricity is turned off for the night.
The next morning we done our boat cruise of the fjords, the main purpose of any trip to Milford Sound. The weather wasn't great but the views of waterfalls and mountains were still pretty cool. At one stage the skipper of our boat brought us really close to one of the waterfalls, which proceeded to absolutely soak all of us at the front of the boat, cracking banter! On the way back to the harbour we spotted penguins, seals and.. dolphins!!! The dolphins were amazing, some would same Dolphintastic or Dolphenomenal! They seem like such playful creatures, swimming literally inches from the front of our boat it seemed, God they must be fast. Some of them were showing off, doing little tricks for us like lying on their backs- was incredible! It is so much better when you spot these creatures in their natural environment. I once told Dan how Dolphins were the most intelligent mammals after humans to which he replied, "No Mike your bullshitting everyone knows it's the Yorkshire terrier!" (Or words to that effect... ahem)
After our "exhillerating" experience (Jonny's words) we
had another long drive ahead of us, we finally ended up in the town of Riverton after a quick stop at a nice bridge (Not really a Big gun, but was good to stretch the legs). We were the only people in the hostel, which was above a pub ran by a lovely couple called Bruce and Joy. The Hostel was called Globe and we were made to feel really welcome during our brief stay, Joy had us try this meat that comes from Paua shells, whose pearls are used to make jewelerry, was quite nice (apparently it's quite expensive aswell)
Another long drive awaited us in the morning, we decided to take the more scenic drive across the coast line of South New Zealand through the Catilins, an area not disimilar to the Lake District (It's actually called the Lakes District). We had a few stop offs on the way, in search of some Sea Lions. After a bit of a walk we reached the beach, not quite like the beaches in Thailand more like Silloth Beach on a wet and miserable day! We were about to give up hope on the Sea Lions when one emerged out
Dolphins again
Motoring alongside the front of our boat. of the water!! We got quite excited at our success, "Get a photo, get a photo!" Will screamed again! The Sea Lion must have shit itself when it seen Freddy running towards him with his luminous orange anorak on, I think it had a bit of a thing for Will aswell who was wearing all black and might have looked like a Sea Lion if you are half blind! The Sea Lion charged at us a couple of times, it wasn't going that fast but fast enough for me to stay well clear, especially as it showed us it's teeth. We decided to leave it be after a while and headed back to the car.
Next stop was Nugget Point aka The Twelve Apostles of the Catlins. We walked to a Lighthouse and then looked down into the sea, where there were these huge rocks poking above the surface (They have the appearance of Gold Nuggets, withthout the "Goldness though!") It was sooo windy up by the lighthouse, if I hadn't put on half a stone whilst travelling I would've ran the risk of being blown out to sea I reckon.
We arrived in Dunedin, the second largest
Bridge Banter
Random stop off in the car. I've decided to put this pic on the site, rather than the one in which Fred mooned the camera, in the interests of public health city in the South Island, in the late afternoon. Dunedin is apparently Celtic for "Edinburgh", and was in fact modelled on the Scottish Capital: they even have a Princes Street! The whole peninsula has a Scottish feel to it, both in the scenery and the fact that a lot of place names are named after places in Scotland. That night we went for a few Carrow Road casuals (casual beers) with this American girl from our hostel. There is this beer over here called Monteiths, there are a few different types of it and it is bloody gorgeous especially Monteith Celtic-warms the cockles on a cold winter night (God, i hate that phrase but i couldn't think of another one)
The next day we headed to, wait for it.. the steepest street in the world! Now i've been up some steep streets in my time, especially in Sheffield aka Roslin Road and Conduit, so to scale the steepest in the world would be quite an achievement. It didn't look THAT steep, but we still enjoyed the banter. Firstly we walked up and down it, knackering- before flooring it in the car! I tried it in second gear for a
Stop riling the Sea Lions Fred!
I was just about to run off like a girl as this photo was taken. while before realising that we were perilously close to looking ridiculous, rolling down the hill with people watching- we made it to the top revving like crazy in first gear, at least we made it though!
We had a beautiful drive along the Peninsula, one false steer and we would have been sleeping with the fishes: the sun was shining bright and the coastline was stunning. After a quick bite to eat we went to Lanarch Castle, yes that's right they have a Castle in New Zealand (apparently it's the only one in the Southern Hemisphere?!) It was built in the nineteenth century by William Lanarch to try and impress his French Noblity wife, I had a look around the interior aswell as the gardens. The story of the Lanarchs was fascinating: William's first wife died young so he married her sister, who soon died, before marrying a woman 20 years his junior who had an affair with one of his sons. William then became the only MP to commit suicide in Parliament buildings! I love a bit of history! The Tower at the top of the castle offered great views of the whole peninsula: rolling hills galore, and
of Dunedin.
Dunedin is the home of New Zealand's first University, and has a thriving student population. That night we went to a student bar, was cheap as chips, before crashing back at the hostel.
We've just arrived in Mount Cook Village now after another great drive, i'll keep you posted.
Mike
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