Jenny's Trek Down Under

Most tourists who visit New Zealand bypass the journey along the southern scenic route all together and head straight from queenstown to Dunedin. Since I had the time I decided to take the road less traveled and head to Dunedin via Invercargill and along the rugged Catlins Coast. The Catlins are well known for their untamed coastline and multiple opportunities to view local wildlife.
The week I drove along the coast was one of the windiest times I have ever experienced. With southwesterly winds up to 120km/hr for the first time in my travels it was not me driving my car, but rather mother nature. I felt my car constantly veering towards the left...now, the left would be a 200m drop into a raging ocean and jagged cliffs...all I could think was if only the car would veer right instead..I'm sure hitting oncoming traffic would be a lot less painful then those sharp rocks...morbid maybe, but hey we all have these thoughts some time or another.
I seemed to stop the car every 10 minutes to hike to some remote little waterfall or tramp my way through soggy mud and grass to wetlands or a beach. On one particular stop I made my way to a beach called jemstone beach. The name came as no surprise as the pebbled beach seemed to shimmer in jade, ruby reds, emerald greens, cobalt blues. Never much of a seashell collector I decided to collect rocks--exciting I know...but they were just too beautiful to walk past. As I collected these rocks stuffing them into my 'cough' poncho 'cough' all I could think of was what a hypocrite I was. A few years before I had spent my summer working at zion national park telling the kids countless times that you should not take rocks because if every person who visited zion national park took one rock before you knew it it would no longer be zion national park...but rather zion national flatlands and who would want to visit there? (this would be the moment when the 6 year olds would burst out into giggles...so feel free to...) anyways at that moment, I said fuck it...I'm sure half those kids will end up in gangs or in jail anyways....so I loaded up...I can't lie the thought did run through my head that these authentic new zealand rocks would make great gifts to give back home...okay that might make me seem a little cheap...but honestly how many people can say they have a real live rock from new zealand...exactly. That was until the other day I was shuffling through my stuff and discovered that my prized rubies and emeralds now just looked black and dirty...apparently the way the water and sun was hitting the rocks that day made them look special...but alas they were just your run of the mill rocks...but no worries each of you is still getting one of them as a souvenier!
So, my experience in the catlins was kind of like a mini high school reunion. I was constantly running into fellow travelers that I had seen during earlier days in my travels...so here I went from traveling down the west coast where I could easily travel 200km and not see a single soul to running into the same people city after city. There was the lovely french couple that was too stereotypical for words...they were the most over affectionate overly food obsessed people I have ever met. There was simon and sara the british couple who I played a rousing game of scrabble with and ended up representing for America...then there were the two identical twin red headed sisters well nothing too exciting to note about them...but they did have red hair...Lewis family pride what what? Lastly there was the German...for a period of three days every single random stop I made along the way he was there...so we got to talking inside the hyde...(which is a little wooden hut you sit in while watching penguins make their way up from the water to the shore) and I learned he just like myself was doing the whole solo traveling thing by car...now back to the penguins...the penguins alone made my travel down the coast more than worth it....within a span of an hour 5/6 penguins slowly made their way to shore...floating along in the water, waddling up the shore, hopping up the dirt path and finally out of sight...and further down the shore were sea lions and seals...not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon.
Then there was Zabita who I met in a deserted holiday park...now Zabita had one of those uncomofrtably short haircuts that left you guessing for the first hour whether or not Zabita was infact a boy or girl...that and the fact that she was of the British persuasion where not one word out of her mouth sounded remotely like english. It was so freezing that night that we ended up having a contest to see how many layers we each could wear...I had 22 shirts on top and a jacket, 8 pairs of pants on the bottom and 13 pairs of socks....I was toasty...speaking of toasty....burnt...there was the matter of my craptowel that just wouldn't dry so I had the 'genius' idea to get out a frying pan place my towel in it...you can see where this is heading...so yes I set the craptowel on fire...so now everytime I shower I am left with little pieces of burnt towel all over me...

Richard...the merino mullet toting local farmer. Now a merino mullet is a special brand of mullets...it's a kiwi mullet. It has the poof and fluffiness of the number one road kill in new zealand--the possum and the curly-q tail or 'party in the back' of a pig. Now, I met richard while staying in a campground in the outskirts of Invercargill. As I made my way into the kitchen for a late dinner of sorts with my latest Irving novel in hand I found a comfy chair in the corner and sat down. A good 10 minutes later the real 'encounter' of the week occured. Richard introduced himself as a local who lived at the motor camp full time and was kind enough to point through the window to his trailer...the one with the year round christmas lights and huge fishing pond in the front with fake fish in it. We then got into a 'heated' discussion about his childhood love of farm machinery and how that translated into an adulthood spent collecting model farm miniatures. Now, richard was a rather expressive man always using his hands to gesture...it was hard not to take note of his hands or rather fingernails...each nail was cut in an alternating pattern of long, short, long...with an equal amount of dirt deposited underneath. Richard also had a lovely habit of calling me 'sweets'...not to be confused with 'sweetie'...but sweets. He then told me how his lifelong dream was to go to disney WORLD...funny I said, mine was to travel and see the WORLD.

It has been a little over a month since I have been on the rowdy road and it is only in this past week that I can say I feel like I've finally hit my stride. Waking up around 6:30/7 every morning to a backpacker breakfast of sorts--meaning whatever I can scrounge around that is cheap and easy. By the time I finish packing up and hit the road the first signs of daylight are usually painting the sky piercing reds, oranges, pinks and purples and the sun is in that low almost blinding spot on the road where you have to squint and pray that what's making your tires screech and your car rattle is actually the road.
This past week I have made my way down from Te anau to Dunedin via the Southern scenic route. I realize that means nothing to you...but anyways it's some sort of reference. I spent four nights in Te Anau where days were spent hiking the kepler trek (one of the great walks of new zealand) and exploring the little town.
On June 1st, I drove to Milford Sound along milford road which is rumored to be one of the most beautiful drives in all of new zealand. I would concur that is if I could have seen a damn thing I was driving through. The cloud cover was so dense that it seemed almost a pity to waste my petrol, but alas I knew going to new zealand and missing the milford sound would be like going to the united states and not seeing the statue of liberty...in other words it wasn't an option.
I apparently arrived just in the nick of time for the last cruise of the day in the sounds. Without time to grab a jacket I was off and running. Now, the first clue that should have alerted me to the fact that this cruise was more 'hands on' then your typical cruise of the sounds was that it was called 'the encounter.' the second should have been the fact that onboard everyone seemed to be wearing these red rain jackets...it felt like they were all part of an exlusive club...a club of rain jacket misfits and I was on the outs. Now the third and final clue would be that the once classical easy listening music streaming through the speakers started playing the all too familiar jaws theme music...and then it happened the small cruise boat went head on into a waterfall...now if you have never been on a boat headed straight into a 750m high powerful force of mother nature...then I can honestly say you have never lived before. It felt like the ultimate white water rafting experience as the small boat rocked back and forth with the front of the boat at times nearly pointed to the sky...we crashed into the falls and while everyone screamed in excitement it hit me...so that's what the rainjackets were for. To say I looked like a wet dog would be an understatement I looked like the dead lifeless soaking rat the wet scraggly dog dragged in, but alas who can complain when your traveling on a small private cruise ship through a neverending landscape of fjords, hundreds of thousands of little waterfalls and the picture perfect rainbow cutting across the hazy, now slightly clearing skies of the MILF...milford sound that is.