Change In Plans

THE PRINCESS IN HER NEW PARTY DRESS

 

Greetings again from Fiordland National Park! 

Although we got through it without too much ill temper or bad behavior, on the third day our enthusiasm for the Doubtful Sound cruise crumbled a little.  More accurately, it melted in the incessant, driving rain. 

India and I had listened to the weather forecast last night on Chris’s maritime radio.  The dry, New Zealand-accented voice said things like “45 to 60 knot winds” and “driving rain throughout most of the day” and “unseasonably cold.”  Ugh.

The rain started last night after dinner, and rattled off the aluminum deck at least until I fell asleep.  When we woke up, it was still pouring.  Several new waterfalls had appeared on the mountainsides surrounding the cover where we were anchored.  We have definitely seen more waterfalls in the last three days than in our entire lives cumulatively before the boat trip.

With the rain pouring down, our distractions of the last two days – fishing and standing around on deck — would not be practical.  We had to become more creative in our efforts to entertain the kids.  We found an ancient deck of playing cards, and Tallulah, Zola and I played endless games of Go Fish.  I loaned Zola a 532-page airport novel called “Far Horizon.” I hoped that whatever sex scenes are in the book would be modest, and would not start until after page 300 or so, when he would be likely to have given up.  India worked with Tallulah on spelling words and handwriting for a long time.  Later she had Tallulah create a stage play with her menagerie of Little Pet Shop dolls.  Zola took over the play, and changed the storyline to a World War II battle.

Eventually, we gave in and let Zola play with his Nintendo DS for a few hours.  We are grateful that he has it, and that we bought a charger in Sydney.  India read a book called “Sideways: Travels with Franz K., Hunter S., and Kerouac” that I had finished yesterday.  I found the writer mildly annoying, but some of his travel stories amusing.  India has much less tolerance for his particular kind of whiny loserdom.

We motored around for hours, looking at steep hillsides and waterfalls through the windows of the cabin.  I took a shower in the very compact bathroom, and managed to get clean and not sprain my back, which I considered a victory.  Chris got out his rifle to shoot at (and miss) more deer, but Tallulah kept crying, “Please don’t shoot the baby, Mr. Chris.  Please don’t shoot the baby.”

Finally, in the early evening, the rain stopped, and the clouds lifted.  A pod of about 40 dolphins swam alongside us for 20 minutes, which was amazing.  We could see snow on the peaks of the mountains surrounding us.  For the first time since we boarded, there were none of the biting sand flies in the air (apparently they don’t like the cold). 

Tomorrow morning we disembark early, and make the long trip back to Queenstown.  After the days of on-board isolation, my guess is that the small city will feel like Paris.  I am glad that we did this, and glad that we enjoyed it.  Over time, the abiding memories will be of the spectacular beauty, the fishing, the dolphins, and the family time together.  Not sure we could have survived two more days, though.