En Route to Doubtful Sound
Greetings from Southland, New Zealand!
We are motoring south in a giant bus, headed toward our three-day boat cruise on Doubtful Sound. The sun has just risen over the mountains and sheep pastures. The tiny slice of New Zealand we have seen this morning has been at least as beautiful as we hoped it would be.
Aside from us, the average age of the passengers on board appears to be about 106. I’ve never actually been on a giant tour bus like this: the huge panorama windows and sky lights are pretty awesome. Like a filibustering Senator, our driver, Keith, has been giving non-stop commentary since we left Queenstown two hours ago. He just finished a detailed history of the New Zealand deer-farming industry.
Our time in Queenstown was too short to form much of an opinion about the place. As the “adventure travel capital of the world,” it has a ski-town feel. Lots of young athletic tourists, 110 pubs. From our hotel room, we heard laughing and shouting (and at least one fist fight) going late into the evening. It is definitely beautiful, with a dark lake surrounded by craggy, low mountains
We went for a walk last night, and saw a small, drunken troupe of fire jugglers performing in a pedestrian mall. Zola and Lu thought they were extremely cool. One performer fell down several times, as his flaming devil stick flew into the small crowd, and he laughed maniacally. A female fire eater walked the perimeter of the performance area, cracking a bull whip. Weird.
We will be back in Queenstown for several days, after the Doubtful Sound cruise. In the meantime, everyone has fallen asleep on board (despite Keith’s filibuster), and rain has started to pour down outside.
Adventure awaits in New Zealand.
PostScript- moments after I wrote this post, Keith stopped the bus and woke everyone up. Those of us going to Doubtful Sound (as opposed to Milford Sound) were herded in the rain onto a smaller bus. An elderly man slipped or collapsed, climbing the stairs into the new bus, and tumbled backwards out the door. Fortunately for him, he fell directly into India’s arms, and she saved him. Maybe he was flirting. This driver is silent, and both kids fell back asleep immediately. We just passed a deer farm, a branch of agriculture I now know more about than I would ever have expected.