Doubtful Sound

So we finally got to Doubtful Sound. We had a boat, bus, boat tour with about 90 other intrepid souls. I think we were the only tour boat on the lake that day, with a few other scientists' boats and others around. It was incredible. I loved Milford Sound when I was there before, but it was definitely more of a tourist destination. Many more people and boats. Rich went crazy with the photos, but I only took about 50. I liked just sitting and watching the scenery and trying to absorb it, so that when I'm freaked out at work, I can go back there in my head. One of the coolest aspects of the tour was when they took us into an arm of the fiord (its really a fiord not a sound) and turned off all of the engines. It was silent. Your could hear the water, the birds, the wind, but nothing else. Silence. We don't have much of that in our world anymore and it was a great moment.

Here are some of my favorite shots (yes, Rich I promise to purchase the flickr account (soon) and post everything):




That night we drove into Te Anau (I swear no two Kiwi's pronounce it the same, and I can't say it to save my life). We had a fantastic dinner and while Rich was taking his photo of "Wong Way" he missed the shot of a lifetime:
It's kind of hard to see, but this is a busload of Chinese tourists heading into the local Chinese eatery. It was great. I'm sure they were disappointed. We also found a miracle cream in Te Anau for the sandfly bites. It was amazing. It helped so much. They are evil. EVIL,

The next day was very interesting considering it was Good Friday and we had a 10-hour drive ahead of us. In New Zealand, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday are holidays. Not much is open. On the Friday and Sunday, almost nothing is open-legally. Petrol stations, some restaurants, and that's it. We were driving through tiny little ghost towns all day. And at times, there was fog. It didn't help. Eerie! We did have our amusements along the way. In one store we saw this:
Which made me stop. Especially when you see the whole image:
Yep, that's two men overcoming their fear of big nuts. I'm so happy for them.

We got to Dunedin around lunch time. Compared to two days before, you would think the apocalypse had happen. This is a bustling city normally, but the streets were empty and most businesses closed! We ate lunch at a little place we'd eaten breakfast at before. They add a surcharge of 15% on holidays because they have to pay a fine for being open! So different. While lunching there, we both had to use the facilities. The facilities had pets:

There's fish in that thar pond!

We made it safely to Christchurch, stopping to admire the views along the way. Unpacked and got ready for the wedding of Luke and Bronwyn. That's next.