kayaking fiordland, chasing rainbows, parrot bonding

Today i finished my marine science lab early (it's Wednesdays 2-6, yuck!) and went on a great run.  Just recently i found out that there is much more to the Botanic Gardens (refer back to my album of photos on my way to the grocery store) than i'd thought.  I was talking to my flatmates and apparently i've just not explored enough.  So today i headed in the direction that they told me to go and holy cow, there is soooooo much more that i never saw until today!  It is so beautiful there and just a maze of trails leading in every direction, a great place for a jog.  As i was in discovery mode i came across the aviary, which i thought i'd seen before but was mistaken.  There are a whole bunch of different birds there from all over the world, it's a really neat place.  I was looking at one particular parrot, a beautiful white one, with a bit of lime green coloring on his head.  I thought we were having a moment when he quickly flew and switched places with the other parrot of his same species, so now i was looking at pretty parrot #2.  He (she maybe? nah, i think it was a he, because we were definitely flirting) was latched onto the fencing that separated us, my face about a foot from his.  We stared at each other for maybe 30 seconds and then he squawked 'herro!".  I laughed and said hello back, then he said hello, then i said hello, and by this time people around me were paying attention and these two little girls were just so excited that the parrot was speaking.  They came over and he spoke to them too.  it must have been a good afternoon for Jenn to deeply connect with the birds because a few minutes after that i was having a lot of fun playing hide and seek with a black African parrot, and then we spent some time mimicking each other (he moves, i move in same direction, etc.).  Needless to say, it was a good afternoon.

Mirror Lake - one of the stops on the way to Milford Sound.  Blonde moment for Jenn occurred when i initially thought that the sign is upside down because it fell...

Fiordland National Park: Road to Milford

Rewind to this past Friday: four of us girls (me, Paula, other Jen, and a friend named Ruby) packed up and headed out for our latest adventure - kayaking Milford Sound.  We drove to a town called Te Anau, which is the closest main town to Milford.  We arrived late Friday night and got into the hostel.  All four of us were in dorm-style rooms (co-ed and split two and two since we booked last-minute); Paula and I were together.  We crashed on our set of bunk beds as soon as we got in and went to sleep, or at least tried.  We had some pretty inconsiderate roommates, all making a ton of noise when they came in to go to bed.  The last guy to get in came around 1 am and he must have zipped and un-zipped all of the zippers on his jacket about 15 times, rearranged all of his belongings, and received great satisfaction in rustling all of the plastic shopping bags he could find.  It was insane, and the worst night of sleep ever.  Nevertheless, we had a fantastic start to our Saturday and the kayak company picked for four of us up a little before 8 am to embark on our day trip.  It's about a 2 hour drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound and i'm really glad that i was a passenger; had i been driving us i either would have missed looking at some of the best views i've ever seen or we would have wrecked on the way there.  Our driver (and kayak instructor as well) stopped at different spots for us to take pictures and then we arrived at Milford and embarked on our kayak journey.  We were in double kayaks and wore the most ridiculous thermals to stay warm, but the garb only made the experience that much more memorable:

 

We really lucked out and got a sunny day for kayaking the sound, usually it's rainy.  The views were just phenomenal and it we had a ton of fun.  We kayaked for about 5 hours and saw an enormous waterfall, a few seals, and learned some interesting information about the area.  Milford Sound is located in Fiordland National Park, which is the second largest national park in NZ.  We learned that Milford Sound is actually misnamed - it is a fiord, rather than a sound.  The difference between the two is that a sound is a "v" shaped valley carved out by a river that has been flooded by the ocean, while a fiord is more of  "u" shaped valley carved out by glaciers, also now flooded by the ocean.  Here are some of our sights:

THE Milford Sound

[in order to get a feel for the magnitude of this waterfall, note the kayaker in the picture on the right]

We finished our kayaking trip and were getting out of the water beside some fishermen who had just got back from collecting the NZ equivalent of lobsters from traps.  We stopped by their boat to have a look and saw that they were munching on some raw crab legs and they offered us each one to try, then gave us the whole container to have!  So we had boiled legs on Sunday before we left, yum!  super random, but it's things like that situation that are just so cool about being in the right place at the right time.

Paula talking to the fishermen and their fresh catch

We rode back the few hours to Te Anau and then went for dinner to this little convenience store for the best fish and chips i've ever had, soooo good.  We were all tired and ready for bed after we finished eating but then realized that it was only 7:30, which is not an ok time for a bunch of 21-year-olds to be going to bed (and the fact that we wouldn't have been able to sleep the whole night) so we went to  bar/restaurant called The Moose, where we had the best bartender who let us sample a bunch of different beers (and we got "MOOSE" stamped on our wrists, can't beat that), then we went to a cute little pizza place to hang out for a bit and did a good Leonard photo shoot.  Funny thing about that...we were taking some pictures of Leonard and I sharing a milkshake when one of the servers walked by our table and just lost it, she was laughing so hard.  It took me a minute to realize what was so funny; you see i am so accustomed to taking pictures with Leonard that it didn't really occur to me that it isn't entirely normal to be posing to drink my milkshake with my fluffy stuffed llama.

After the pizza place we were heading back to the hostel (where i would soon have a much better sleep than the previous night's) and we were walking by a playground.  There was no question, we were going to play on that playground.  The four of us stayed and played like little kids for at least an hour.  The playgrounds here are legit...i think there must be less safety regulations or something because some of these play structures are crazy, but definitely a whole lot of fun.

Sunday morning came, and after sleeping in and eating our seafood we spent some time in the town of Te Anau; this was the first time we really got to see it in the light since we got there late Friday night and were at Milford all day Saturday.  It's a great little place.  We were about ready to head back to Dunedin after having coffee by the lake when we saw the first of many rainbows, double rainbow, all the way across.  It was amazing, but just a precursor for what we would see throughout our entire ride home.  I have never seen so many rainbows in my life, and definitely not all in one day.  We saw a bunch of double rainbows, all the way across (if you don't get this reference, please search it on youtube).  I have to say though, that my favorite was the rainbow that had one end planted on the road in front of us.  Truly amazing.  Here are a bunch of my rainbow photos (and note that these are different rainbows!):

the first of many; this one is over Lake Te Anau

i love the wet road in this one, and the variation in color

didn't realize until i looked at this photo on my computer that there are actually TWO rainbows here!

the most vibrantly-colored

my personal favorite, we got to drive straight to it.  Also, this photo is unedited.

double and all the way across.  my lens just wasn't wide enough to capture the entire thing

rainbows and sheep, what better combination??

Well, this will be my last post for a bit...our mid-semester break begins on Friday and i will be computer-less until i get back into Dunedin.  We are heading north to see Nelson, hike the Abel Tasman trail, and ferry across to Wellington for a few days.  Happy Easter everyone!

[you can view the full album of my milford weekend here]