Change In Plans

Day Four

FIORDLAND!

Greetings again from Fiordland National Park! 

We are motoring back to the dock at Deep Cove, where we will start the 5-hour return trip: van over Wilmot Pass, fast ferry across Lake Manapouri, buses back to Queenstown.  

Last night I couldn’t sleep, and read all 532 pages of another Tony Park African safari thriller, called  “Far Horizon.”  It was completely implausible, but action packed and fun to read.  Also,  it was nice to be mentally transported back to hot, dry places like South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

At about 2:30 am, there was a landslide somewhere at the edge of the cove where we were anchored: a loud roar followed by the cracking sound of many trees being broken.  For a long while after that, the boat rocked, and there was the noise of water dripping loudly onto (into?) the hull.  Lying in the bunk below the water line, I assumed that Chris would wake up and save us if the boat were actually sinking.

When India and I went out on deck in the morning, there was snow sticking halfway down all of the mountains surrounding the cove.  The temperature was just above freezing, and the snow had turned back to cold rain.  The irony of the weather (and my poor ingoing understanding of what to expect from the boat trip) was brought home as I repacked my baggage.  I guess I didn’t need to carry my running clothes, bathing suit, sunglasses, or swim goggles after all.  Swim goggles?

DOLPHINS!

Chris has proven to be an absolutely competent and reassuring captain, and is a very nice man.  That said, he is possibly the most taciturn person I have ever spent significant time with.  Over the course of four days, he has not asked a single question about us, nor has he offered any information about his life, his interests, or anything.  Even Tallulah and Zola stopped trying to help with the cooking, fishing, driving the boat, etc. 

He makes the stereotypical New England farmer (or Maine lobsterman) seem positively chatty by comparison.  

We will be back in Queenstown in a few hours.  India will go on a long run, and celebrate with a Diet Coke.  We will rent a car, and take control over our movements and activities.  The kids will run around like uncaged monkeys.  Starting tomorrow, we will do the adventure sports that Queenstown is famous for.

  Although a few drying-out days was not a bad thing, we may even treat ourselves to a glass of wine at dinner.  

Seeing Doubtful Sound has been a great privilege.  For a long time, we will remember the magnificence of the scenery, the wildness and the isolation, and the drama of the weather.  In retrospect (the travel planner’s friend), two days would have been enough. 

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.

LOBSTER!

Greetings again from Fiordland National Park!

We have been generally enjoying our time on the good boat, Sea Finn, for two days now.

Technical notes on the boat: it is a 66-foot all-aluminum motor cruiser, with twin 600-horsepower engines.  The main living area is an enclosed cabin/bridge/galley room, about 8 meters long and 5 meters wide.  There are large windows on all sides. There are six cabins below deck, each with bunk beds.  In a pinch, the oat could sleep 18-20 passengers, but a normal group is about 12.  There is a large open aft deck, with two bathrooms (including showers).  Literally every external surface on the boat is made of brushed aluminum.

Last night we were exhausted, and in the very dark silence of the below-deck bunks, we all slept deeply.   I was woken up only once, by a booming noise that resonated through the aluminum hull of the boat.  It sounded like thunder, but came from underneath.  I found out this morning that it was, of course, an earthquake. 

Apparently this part of New Zealand has small ones nearly every day.

Slightly confused by the time zones and the lack of sunlight, we thought we had woken up before 8 am. 

Once we were on deck, we realized that somehow we had slept until nearly 10.  We had missed the tides that would have allowed us to go further up into Charles Sound, so instead Chris took us back to check the lobster trap.  He was visibly non-plussed, but assured us that the change in plans was OK.  We found six giants in the trap, each weighing 2-3 kilograms, and planned on having more lobster for lunch. 

As we motored back up the sound toward the Tasman Sea, we stopped several times to fish.  Who would have guessed that India, the human-rights mom, is a natural-born killer with a fishing rod?  She brought in the most fish, by far, including a blue cod nearly as long as Tallulah is tall.

DEER!

Chris spied three feral deer standing halfway an exposed hillside as we motored past.  Even with the binoculars they looked far away, about 400 meters.  Chris said that with his big gun, he would have shot one easily.  But he had left the big gun at home.  To Zola’s almost squealing excitement (Shhhh!) and Tallulah’s horror, Chris decided to shoot at them with the little .243 rifle he had bought.  He got off six shots, and got close at least once, but didn’t bring down a deer.  They ambled slowly into the deep forest, seemingly unaware that the loud bang! noise should have meant “run.”

We came out of Charles Sound and made another open-water crossing in the afternoon.  The sea was much rougher than it was yesterday: with swells running 3-4 meters.  Because she had slept through yesterday’s crossing, Tallulah was frightened to be bobbing and pitching in the open ocean like this.  She cried as the boat rose and fell, and waves crashed against the windows.  To distract Tallulah, we ended up singing loudly and badly together as a family.

  We stuck with camp-song favorites and studiously avoided the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song.  In all of our travels, this was the only time she has really been scared.  Throughout our singing, Chris did not smile and Queen continued to play loudly over the loudspeakers, the only time music was played on board.

In the late afternoon, we moored in Deas Cove, and took “the wee boat” ashore.

  There was a group of men filling scuba tanks from a compressor on the beach.  They were camping in a nearby government hut, and we spent 20 minutes talking to them.  They are the only people we have seen since we got on Sea Finn.  We went for a walk across a flat open area between the cove and the sound. 

It was perhaps twenty acres across, covered by sandy stone and a forest of ghostly trees.  This area was created by a huge landslide during the big earthquake of 2003, leaving an open 100-meter-wide scar on the side of the steep mountain. The sand flies were out in unbelievable force during our walk.  At one point, I clasped Tallulah’s head in both of my hands, and killed about 30 flies that were in her hair. 

Still, it was nice to stretch our legs, and the afternoon downpour waited until five minutes after we got back on the boat.

SHORE LEAVE!

Zola was very clever in asking Chris whether he could take a turn at the helm.  He said, “Chris, how old were your sons when you let them drive the boat?”  Chris looked over from the wheel and said, “About eight, I figure.”  Zola made the observation, “That’s interesting. 

I’m nine.”  There was a long, awkward silence before I said, “Yes, Zola, but you aren’t Chris’s son.”  He was unsuccessful, but I was impressed that he approached the question this way.

This evening we will have another meal of fish that we caught, and we are planning to  watch Chris’s only other movie: “The Patriot”, starring Mel Gibson.

On day two, so far, so good. 

We are all still sane, still enjoying ourselves, and still marveling at the spectacle of Doubtful Sound.

QUICK, BEFORE IT RAINS!