November 6th - 8th – The Deep South

I successfully made it to the pick up point after I left the hut that morning. It was more or less a shelter on the side of the motorway. I was nervous that the bus, the same company that i had rode with before, would not show up, but they did.

I was headed on a 3 night foray to the deep south of the south island starting with the famous Milford Sound. It is a Fjord, which i think by definition is a waterway created by and iceberg, anyway it is a beautifully impressive inlet that leads to/from the ocean. It was just another hour or so from my pickup point to the sound and I had cleaned myself up just enough to be presentable to my busmates which consisted of a few people from my previous bus and a bunch of new people. When we arrived we took a boat trip in the sound along with a proverbial and literal boatload of other tourists. The weather was clear and apparently that is very lucky as the views of the sound are often marred by fog and rain. To be totally honest, though the view was spectacular it had been talked up too much by the time i got there and I wasn´t bowled over. In addition to the sights, I also enjoyed speaking with a group of Chinese mainlanders who were also along on the trip.

After the 2 hour boat trip, we boarded the bus to head to the quite random city where we would sleep the night. I was pretty much mush at this point from the lack of sleep and energy expediture of the previous 3 days. When we arrived at the hostel I took an amzingly long hot shower, made myself a curry, had a few beers and slept like a rock.

It was a very early wakeup the next morning because some of us would be heading across the New Zealand´s southern most island...Stewart Island. It turns out that almost no one on the bus was planning on going over, but I had already bought my ticket as a package deal with the Milford boat cruise. I am really glad I did because if i had heard the group opinion before I may have fallen victim to group think and that would have been a terrible mistake. So about 5 of us headed off on the hour long ferry to the island to arrive around mid-day. The crossing was apparently rough on people as most of the people in the cabin were busy losing their breakfast into the complimentary vomit bags. I was fine. The weather was suspect and that was our main concern upon arriving on the island.

We would be staying the night there, so we first made the way to the hostel which was about 5 minutes from the dock , in fact you could get anywhere in the settlement in about 5 minutes. It reminded me of a small bahamian port, but subsitute the bahamians with drunken European fisherman.

I prepared a hot lunch of tomatoe soup and grilled cheese to match the weather for myself and two friends and then we headed off on the myriad of local nature walks around the area. The weather cooperated and it never rained more than a couple minutes at a time. We spent nearly 5 hours exploring the island and it was fantastic. It was almost tropical, but amongst cold antarctic currents. We talked, walked and snapped lots of photos. When we got tired we headed back to the hostel and I snagged fresh fish and chips from the island dive. I was still getting over the past few days and was tired, but we managed to head out to the local tavern. I didn´t stay long, but it was nice sticking out like a sore thumb amongst a group of warm and ragged locals.

The next morning I hopped aboard a 7:30 ferry to meet the rest of the bus on the otherside. The weather was spectacular....not a cloud in the sky and we enjoyed the smooth crossing; the ever changing weather in New Zealand is crazy. When we met up with the other group they were lamenting their decision as the city across from the Island was boring and the most exciting thing they did was watch a movie. I showed off my pictures, but tried not to gloat.

We were to spend just the next evening in a larger city(like 250k population) in the south called Dunedin which is most famous for having the steepest street in the world. However, the drive out there was what was impressive, the southeast coast provided yet another totally different landscape. The coastline was unbelievable, green almost tropical looking water butting up against rocky cliffs at places and white sand beaches at others. If the weather in this area cooperated more of the year, it would be premier tourist territory, instead just a few lucky new zealanders have cute, but shabby looking trailers among nearly desolate beauty. I alternating sleeping and getting off the bus for photo stops and nature hikes along the road to Dunedin.

We arrived around 5 pm and after a quick check into the hostel, I rushed with one other busmate to the 6 pm tour of the Speights brewery which is a institution in the “Southland.” It was fun, informative and I had a very productive half hour of beer samples. I then had dinner and more beers with the friend who went on the tour and met the rest of the group for what promised to be a big night out after an early start.

We bar hopped around dancing and talking until it ended up being just 3 or 4 of us in a dance club around 3:30 am. Some drunk guy stumbled in the bar and gave me a shove on his way across the dance floor, i remember giving him a mild shove and turning my attention back to the group, then i think he shoved me back and caught me on the chin. When I turned to retaliate he was already gone which turned out to be a good thing as I was plenty drunk to make a scene and before i found him i saw him being escorted out of the bar by a bouncer. I was no longer in the mood to dance so we headed up to street level and karma had my back, the guy was being chased by a large bouncer and got caught. He got pulverized and plastered to the pavement until the cops arrived to arrest him. I went and got some chips(fries) and went to sleep feeling that justice was served.