Meanderings

You'll be glad to know that I have not placed myself in the hands of mystics to explore the meaning of the universe as expressed by the scenery in and around Fiordland and Westland...but I'm bloody close.

Milford Sound, eh? Not actually a sound, by the way, it is a Fiord. But the word Fiord hadn't entered the English language when Milford was named, so Sound it is.

Having a small Slartibartfast moment - "I happen to like fiords, I think they give a continent a lovely baroque feel." Mostly I'm procrastinating because I'm not sure I can put Milford Sound into words - well, words that will convey the sheer scale and majesty and magic of it.

I'll just start and see where I end up, eh?

I was on a bus-cruise-bus trip, going from Queenstown to Milford Sound and back, by way of mindnumbingly beautiful mountains and beech forests. From Queenstown we followed The Remarkables, freshly dusted with snow at the very peaks, on the left, and Lake Wakatipu on the right. Definitely a trip where I didn't know where to look, because all of it is so absorbing and changes with every kilometre and shifting cloud mass above.

The Remarkables...towering and sheer and craggy and folded and bare and...gosh. Draped with cloud, torn shreds of mist clinging to their sides, crevasses and crags jostling together, with boulders and occasional pieces of greenery clinging to their sides.

Lake Wakatipu...dark dark green and blue water, soft and powerful, the longest lake in the South Island (I think in New Zealand), populated with islets and spits of land thrust forward from the shore.

After Te Anau (which, gosh also), we started making "Photo Stops" on the way to the Sound. And, thank goodness we did. We had entered the Southern Alps, and my good gracious. We stopped, after coming along a very windy pass, at a tussock covered plain, surrounded by green beech covered mountains, and one massive black craggy snow capped mountain dominating the surroundings. From the bus, it seemed very pretty, but when I stepped out onto the plain, the scale of the landscape hit me like a ton of...well, mountainside, I guess. It's like the mountains changed from flat 2D to surround sound 3D by taking that one step onto the land.

Mirror Lake was just that - a lake bordered and in some places covered by lush forest, but with glassy waters that reflected the mountains that are behind it with absolute clarity. Ducks floating on the water appeared to be scaling the peaks of the mountains. And there were moss covered branches leaning out over the water, slowly dripping condensation.

When we got to Milford Sound, I was gobsmacked initially by the sheer mass of people there. It's a damned popular destination, what? The boats that were waiting at the dock were massive, all closed in except for the top deck. Thankfully, as I was on the Nature Tour (as opposed to the Scenic Tour - got to spend 2 and a half hours out there!!), we were on a smaller boat (shaped like a ye olde craft, with sails and everything), and there were open air viewing places on every deck.

After getting on the boat, I dared to look up, and good golly Miss Molly (I'm trying to find a way to expostulate on the wonders of the world without saying "Fuck". Do you know how hard that is?) Behind me (I was sitting facing out into the Sound), behind the dock, were the peaks through which I had just travelled. On my right was a sheer wall of stone, the rock split and sundered and covered in moss and ferns. To my left was another range of mountains, and in front of me was what would be two valleys if they weren't, you know, covered in water.

As we moved forward, to go into the 'valley' on the left, passing on our right was a triangular, massive, carved out mountainous mass, covered in trees and sporting a magnificent waterfall. On my left, and much closer, another mountainous mass with less greenery, but with shattered stone ledges edging out above us.

The scale of the scenery is really hard to get across, was really hard to get into perspective when we were there. I guess this is how I managed to fit the concept into my head. We were cruising right next to the walls on our left. Across the water, cruising underneath the waterfall, next to the first massive piece of mountain, was a three or four deck high craft, probably holding over a hundred people, and it was like a very small toy boat next to your knee in the bath.

Spent an awful lot of time staring upwards. And took, including the trip there, about 120 photographs. And I don't think any one of them is going to do the experience justice.

As we moved along the sheer wall to our left, and looked up, mountains behind the sound began to loom above the walls around us. Their peaks covered in cloud, the lines of waterfalls all down their sides, their golden sheen contrasting with the dark and mossy and occasionally tree covered bulk below them and next to us.

We got to see the results of tree avalanches - the beeches have very shallow root systems to allow them to grow on these sheer rocky surfaces, and so they tangle together with the trees around them. This helps them cling to the mountainsides, but when there has been particularly heavy rainfall or snowfall, the roots loosen and hundreds of trees are pulled down in an avalanche, leaving a great scar in the midst of green. This scar eventually becomes mossy, and then ferns start to grow there, and the ferns will break down and trees can begin to grow on the sparse soil afforded by the ferns and moss breaking down. There were a number of tree avalanche scars on the peaks around us. Constantly changing scenery...

Looking behind us, as we travelled out towards the Tasman Sea, the peaks and walls that we had gone past rose up and towered in the distance. Perspective changed, and they were softer and capped in light snow and thick white cloud, with a dark mossy green colouring the steep slopes down to the dark and calm waters around them.

Did I mention the music of Milford Sound? As we made our way out into the Sound proper, the "day wind" was enthusiastically whipping hats off heads and causing a number of people to abandon their outside viewpoints. But not me, gentle reader. Are you kidding?? The wind, rushing through the tunnels made by the peaks caused a mournful, echoing keening, which was our constant companion. The lack of it was the first thing I noticed when we made our way out into the Tasman Sea. And when we went back, along the other side of the Sound, the wind was behind us, being caught in our sails, and the music was no longer.

But it was not needed, as joyous laughter and shouts of sheer happiness accompanied us as we came back into the Sound. This was because we were joined by a pod of bottle nosed dolphins, racing the boat, playing in the wake and leaping alongside us. I was lucky enough to have moved down to the lower deck by this time, so I hung over the railing and cooed and called encouragement to these huge beautiful joyful frolicking lovelies.

After they left us, there was a contemplative silence, and then we all started to look upwards again - I had missed an awful lot of the scenery around me due to concentrating on the dolphins. But it was bloody worth it, they brought another level of happy to the experience.

We went past Seal Rock, which, strangely enough, had seals hanging out on it. Who would have thunk it, eh?

The side of the Sound that we were now on had a number of waterfalls coming off it, the first one being 50 storeys high. These waterfalls are made up of the melting snow on the top of the peaks, and rain. They carve the rock, bouncing off crags and flattening greenery. I was standing in the prow (that's the front, right?) of the boat, and the captain took us into just metres of the base of a waterfall (I keep thinking it's the Spencer Waterfall, but I'm pretty sure I've got the name wrong). The spray off the waterfall was light and refreshing and constant. As the waterfall hits the water, it causes the surface to change from pounamu (jade) green to a milky dark turquoise, with white concentric ripples coming from the meeting of rushing waterfall and still water. I stood, eyes closed, hands outspread palm upwards, as close to the front as possible, whilst other people backed away from the spray. My heart was open, and laughter spilled out from me, as I held myself in that one moment. Standing in the spray of a subalpine waterfall in the middle of Milford Sound, the most heart stoppingly beautiful place in a country of inexpressible beauty.

The rest of the journey was the calmness that comes after a tremendously moving experience. I sat on the top deck again, watching the scenery slide by, a huge smile on my face, hugging myself with sheer joy. We passed mountains that made me want to paint, and waterfalls that made me want to sing, and craggy peaks that made me want to stop and photograph them forever.

We sat, watching the distant peaks come closer, the perspective sliding and changing, landscape undulating and folding and shifting, green and black and embraced by cloud, mist rising off faroff waters, magic in every breath.

The trip home was silent and exhausted. There is no way to fit Milford Sound into your heart and head and world view in the couple of hours that you are there. There is every possibility that you never fully appreciate it. I wanted to be on the cruise forever, just going around and around and around, and seeing something new and tremendous and moving with every moment. I hope that I never lose the memory and the feeling of my time in Milford Sound, and that I have been able to describe even a little of the experience in these meagre words.