Pining for the Fiords

New Zealand Travelog #13
Fiordlands National Park, NZ - Thu, 11 Apr 2024, 2pm

Our main event today has been a cruise of Doubtful Sound in Fiordlands National Park. Doubtful Sound is not actually a sound, it's a fiord. There's a technical definition that was lost on the famous explorer who discovered it and named it. But that's a story for another time. For now I want to share just a few simple pictures from the day's tour. And it does need to be just a few to stick to my goal of not falling hopeless behind in journaling this trip. My cameras tell me I have recorded over 500 photographs here today!



We boarded the first ship in the small town of Manapouri this morning at 7:20am, just as dawn was arriving. We'd been up for a few hours already. Well, I had. Not that dawn was much to look at, though, as today has been cloudy and rainy.

This first ship took us across Lake Manapouri. From there we transferred to a bus for the ride over Percy Pass.



Percy Pass is an incredibly rainy area. It's not just raining today, it rains 200+ days a year. And the pass averages more than 10 meters of rainfall annually. To put that in perspective, the city I live in averages less than 0.5 meter annually, and even the wettest parts of the SF Bay Area, the Santa Cruz Mountains and Mt. Tamalpais, average just under 1.5 meters.

With all that rain in the mountains you might imagine there'd be waterfalls. OMG, were there ever. Just on the 35~45 minute bus ride we saw more than a dozen waterfalls, ranging from a few meters high to easily more than 100 meters. Like I said above, I don't have time right now to share all the pictures. But to give you a sense of just how many waterfalls there are, here's a pic I snapped as we boarded the second boat, for a cruise through the sound fiord itself:



Yeah, there's, like, a dozen waterfalls just in that one photo. And if I'd captured a wider angle photo you'd see a dozen more astern of the ship. Once we set sail through the sound fiord we saw easily hundreds more waterfalls. And again, these weren't piddly-shit little 10' drops. Some of these were multi-tiered falls more than 1,000 meters tall.

"If there are hundreds of falls and some are over a kilometer tall, why isn't this place on page 1 of the world record books?" you might wonder. The answer is that lists of the highest falls only list year-round (or mostly-year-round) waterfalls. Out of the multiple hundreds of falls we saw today only, like, two are year-round. The rest appear when it rains and disappear shortly after the rain stops. So while the rain today made for crummy pictures, it made for amazing sights. When we could see them. 😂

Dollars and Distances, Both in Kilometers

New Zealand Travelog #13
Te Anau, NZ - Thu, 11 Apr 2024, 7pm

It's a well known fact for Americans (well, some Americans) that when we travel pretty much anywhere else in the world we have to convert distance measurements to/from kilometers. New Zealand is no exception to that.

Similarly, in most countries we have to convert US dollars to/from the local currency. (I say most because in some countries businesses cheerfully accept US dollars. A few even give fair exchange rates. 😅)

A few of us know that the km/miles conversion is 0.6. We remember it, perhaps, from physics classes where we used it on a daily basis. But what about the various currency conversions? New Zealand makes that simple for us US folks. The NZD-to-USD exchange rate is also about 0.6.

As we've been traveling in New Zealand the past several days I'm often stuck with a moment of sticker shock seeing prices advertised in "dollars" with the $ symbol. They're New Zealand dollars, of course, but my gut reaction because of the naming and symbol is to read them as US dollars. The momentary reaction passes when I remind myself, "These prices are in are kilometers!" 🤣

So, how good or bad are the prices after converting to metric? Well, it depends. Restaurant food isn't too bad. A main dish in a restaurant listed at "$24.50" on the menu, similar to what I've paid for dinner orders the past few nights, looks spendy at first (see above) but multiplying by 0.6 brings it to $14.70 US. Furthermore, considering that taxes are already included and there's no tipping— laws and cultural norms in New Zealand require businesses pay employees fair wages, what a totally no-this-is-not-socialism concept!— makes it equivalent to a "$12" menu price in the US. For what I've ordered for the pre-tip-and-tax equivalent of $12 US, I've gotten pretty decent amounts of dinner.

Not all foodstuff is cheap, though. My dearly beloved Coke Zero, like all sodas in most countries outside the US, is expensive. Soda fountains are virtually unheard of, so you're buying it by the can or bottle in restaurants. That gets expensive quickly. I tend to drink water in restaurants and buy my sodas at the grocery store to enjoy back at my hotel room.

Oh, and the money itself? Like Australia, the "paper" currency is plastic. And it's colorful. It makes me feel like we Americans are cavepeople with our monochromatic "greebacks" printed on... fabric.

A New Bird Joins the Nest

New Zealand Travelog #14
Te Anau, NZ - Thu, 11 Apr 2024, 8pm

I almost forgot— a new bird joined our nest today! As the check-in desk for our fiords cruise today we perused the gift shop. Hawk was looking for a better rain poncho while I was looking for a packable lunch more compelling than a protein bar. 😅 Then I spotted a bird in a basket of bird toys that had the characteristics of a raptor: large, powerful beak; ceres (the nostrils behind the beak); wide mouth; large eyes. It's a Karearea, a falcon native to New Zealand.



Her tag says Karearea normally prey on small to medium size birds, which they catch on the wing— typical for falcons, and very impressive to see happen live— but will also prey on rabbits and other small mammals. I guess it depends on how hungry they are— and whether they have to feed a nest of chicks.

The Karearea is one of actually very few native predators in New Zealand. Unlike Australia where seemingly everything is trying to kill you, it's like New Zealand has been defanged for your comfort. A few predators were brought here by Western colonizers, and they cause no end of trouble even though they're relatively small. Possums were brought over for their fur. Apparently when combined with wool it makes a durable and comfortable material. And rats were brought over because, well, you basically can't not bring rats on a ship. Both are a big threat to a number of native New Zealand bird species— including the Karearea, whose eggs and chicks they eat.

Another Gloomy Morning

New Zealand Travelog #15
Te Anau, NZ - Fri, 12 Apr 2024, 7:30am

The weather has not been a very good friend so far in New Zealand. The best we got was the day we arrived, strung out from a red eye flight and nearly 24 hours of travel. At least we got a chance to walk around outside the airports in shirtsleeves. Sunrise over Lake Wakatipu on Tuesday morning was amazing. But since then it's been mostly gloomy and often raining. Here's our just-after-sunrise view this morning:



This photo is from our walk-out patio at a hotel in Te Anau. We paid extra to have this room with a patio and a view of the mountains in the distance. Yesterday morning we didn't even get this much. We hit the road so early it was still pitch black out. Thus this morning we made a point of going outside before checking out to enjoy our view.

Thus we also discovered the weather's gotten even worse. Today is a notch colder. The past few days had morning temps around 12° C (about 54F). Today it's only 8°.

What about the rest of our room at this hotel? Well, in the spirit of #nofilters:



Yeah, that's often what our room looks like after 2 nights.

Strangely, though, when I travel by myself it usually looks barely touched.