(I'd like to appologize for the lack of pictures in this...technical difficulties. I am posting two that a friend took.)
We left last Thursday afternoon in a haze of confusion. Myself and 13 other international students decided to rent two vans and travel to Fjiorland National Park and the Milford Sound area on the west coast. My friend Lauren organized the whole thing, but she was really the only one who knew what exactly was going on. I thought we were doing a 3 day hike (with 14 people, that'd be idiotic). Even the day of, I had no idea when/where to meet, until I bumped into another friend that was going as well. We were supposed to meet at 4:30 at the museum on campus (why...I'm not sure...6 or 7 of us live in the same complex). I got out of class at noon, and still needed to buy a textbook, buy food for the trip, pack my bag, and stop by the library. At 1pm, I was informed that I'd be sole driver of the 2nd van. Nice to know.
We packed everyone in and left around 5pm. It was supposed to take 5.5hrs during the day...we'd have to make the last quarter (literally, the most dangerous roads in NZ) at night. We lost the other van about 1.5hrs outside of our final destination...they had forgotten that we had to drop off two of our van members for a separate hike. Being that there was only 1 road to where we were going, we just kept going. Fast foward 2hrs...it was dark, we'd just driven 3/4mi through a mountain via unlit, creepy-ass tunnel, hadn't seen a vehicle in over an hour, and had no idea where we were (except that on either side of the road was a long drop. We pulled over to think things through. A few moments later, we saw lights coming from the tunnel a few hundred feet above. It was the other van. After a few profanities were exchanged, we followed them to where we had planned to camp. Unfortunately, no reservations had been made. It was full...the office was closed, so we couldn't get suggestions. We were also low on gas...just under 1/4 tank. We decided to camp on one of the pull-offs just on the other side of the tunnel. Half slept in the vans, while the others slept on the rocks. In the morning we were awoken by a flock of pissed off Kea's (mountain parrots). They were divebombing us, and pecking at our vehicles. I felt like I was in a Hitchcock film. We left as soon as possible, but it wasn't easy. We had camped in in a horseshoe shaped valley, about 200 feet below the top of a mountain. On the peaks were small glaciers, and around us were tall, thin water falls. It was breathtaking (sorry, but these pictures would not upload from my camera).
That day we found a small campground, and went on three separate hikes. The first was to the top of small mountain (just above the lowest cloud level). The second was to a lake 3/4 the way up a mountain we could see in the distance from our first hike (the glacial lake I standing in, and later swam in, in the pictures I sent last week). The third was not nearly as fun, being that it only took 3omin to walk. All in all we hiked for about 10hrs that day. The next day we did another 5hr hike to a scenic river just east of Milford Sound. Except for the biting sand flies, the river and its scenery were perfect.
We camped above a large near Gore that night, and left the next day. It's hard not to elaborate on the individual hikes and subplots in this mini-adventure...but it would take a very long time. I'm long winded as it is. The gist of the story is that despite driving a van full of people through dangerously distracting roads/scenery...on the wrong side of the car/road (at night sometimes)....and swimming in/cliff diving into freezing glacial lakes....nobody got injured, and we all had an awsome time. The scenery was spectacular, and I cannot wait to return for more.
We left last Thursday afternoon in a haze of confusion. Myself and 13 other international students decided to rent two vans and travel to Fjiorland National Park and the Milford Sound area on the west coast. My friend Lauren organized the whole thing, but she was really the only one who knew what exactly was going on. I thought we were doing a 3 day hike (with 14 people, that'd be idiotic). Even the day of, I had no idea when/where to meet, until I bumped into another friend that was going as well. We were supposed to meet at 4:30 at the museum on campus (why...I'm not sure...6 or 7 of us live in the same complex). I got out of class at noon, and still needed to buy a textbook, buy food for the trip, pack my bag, and stop by the library. At 1pm, I was informed that I'd be sole driver of the 2nd van. Nice to know.
We packed everyone in and left around 5pm. It was supposed to take 5.5hrs during the day...we'd have to make the last quarter (literally, the most dangerous roads in NZ) at night. We lost the other van about 1.5hrs outside of our final destination...they had forgotten that we had to drop off two of our van members for a separate hike. Being that there was only 1 road to where we were going, we just kept going. Fast foward 2hrs...it was dark, we'd just driven 3/4mi through a mountain via unlit, creepy-ass tunnel, hadn't seen a vehicle in over an hour, and had no idea where we were (except that on either side of the road was a long drop. We pulled over to think things through. A few moments later, we saw lights coming from the tunnel a few hundred feet above. It was the other van. After a few profanities were exchanged, we followed them to where we had planned to camp. Unfortunately, no reservations had been made. It was full...the office was closed, so we couldn't get suggestions. We were also low on gas...just under 1/4 tank. We decided to camp on one of the pull-offs just on the other side of the tunnel. Half slept in the vans, while the others slept on the rocks. In the morning we were awoken by a flock of pissed off Kea's (mountain parrots). They were divebombing us, and pecking at our vehicles. I felt like I was in a Hitchcock film. We left as soon as possible, but it wasn't easy. We had camped in in a horseshoe shaped valley, about 200 feet below the top of a mountain. On the peaks were small glaciers, and around us were tall, thin water falls. It was breathtaking (sorry, but these pictures would not upload from my camera).
That day we found a small campground, and went on three separate hikes. The first was to the top of small mountain (just above the lowest cloud level). The second was to a lake 3/4 the way up a mountain we could see in the distance from our first hike (the glacial lake I standing in, and later swam in, in the pictures I sent last week). The third was not nearly as fun, being that it only took 3omin to walk. All in all we hiked for about 10hrs that day. The next day we did another 5hr hike to a scenic river just east of Milford Sound. Except for the biting sand flies, the river and its scenery were perfect.
We camped above a large near Gore that night, and left the next day. It's hard not to elaborate on the individual hikes and subplots in this mini-adventure...but it would take a very long time. I'm long winded as it is. The gist of the story is that despite driving a van full of people through dangerously distracting roads/scenery...on the wrong side of the car/road (at night sometimes)....and swimming in/cliff diving into freezing glacial lakes....nobody got injured, and we all had an awsome time. The scenery was spectacular, and I cannot wait to return for more.
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