Te Anau – Milford Sound, New Zealand
It is raining! All morning, we listen to the drops hammering on the roof of the camper van. This is not a good start to a new day and we stay in bed far longer than we ought to. Our plan for the day was to drive on to Milford to do a cruise on the famous sound and later return to Te Anau and have a look at the glowworms which apparently live here in a cave. But it turns out that we were a bit too lazy this morning and cannot make the last cruise leaving Milford at 1 pm. So we stay in Te Anau, and end up having a good time taking silly pictures of funny street names, trout fishers and giant birds.
Later on, we hop on a cruise ship to go and see the glowworms in the cave. The cruise over Lake Te Anau is accompanied by beautiful scenery mirrored in the lake’s water and although it is quite cold on the upper deck, we have to stay and take pictures all the way to the caves. In the caves, we follow the guide through narrow tunnels and over roaring water until we reach a platform where we get onto a tiny boat and “sail” out into the dark. It is pitch black and so loud around us that we do not even hear the boat moving until we reach a silent grotto deep in the mountain. Looking up, there are hundreds of tiny lights shining above us in the dark. Before we can figure out if the glowworms form any constellations in the night sky, the boat heads back to the platform and we are guided back through the same narrow tunnels and over the same roaring water – but now we can see that above us here also twinkle little glowworm stars.
Back out in the light, and the “complimentary tea” in our numb hands, we get to watch a short movie showing us what we saw back there glowing in the dark: the glowworms turn out to be rather ugly little maggots with glowing buttocks, which they use to lure other insects to fly into their “fishing lines” – spider web like lines wrapped in sticky mucus. I am just glad that I did not try to touch the lights…
Back in Te Anau, we head on towards Milford and stop for the night right after the “Mirror Lakes” (Danke nochmal fuer den Tipp, Thomas) – of course not without having taken some really awesome pictures of mountains and clouds reflected in the surface of the lakes.
Day 276: It’s the Wong Way!
Te Anau – Milford Sound, New Zealand
It is raining! All morning, we listen to the drops hammering on the roof of the camper van. This is not a good start to a new day and we stay in bed far longer than we ought to. Our plan for the day was to drive on to Milford to do a cruise on the famous sound and later return to Te Anau and have a look at the glowworms which apparently live here in a cave. But it turns out that we were a bit too lazy this morning and cannot make the last cruise leaving Milford at 1 pm. So we stay in Te Anau, and end up having a good time taking silly pictures of funny street names, trout fishers and giant birds.
Later on, we hop on a cruise ship to go and see the glowworms in the cave. The cruise over Lake Te Anau is accompanied by beautiful scenery mirrored in the lake’s water and although it is quite cold on the upper deck, we have to stay and take pictures all the way to the caves. In the caves, we follow the guide through narrow tunnels and over roaring water until we reach a platform where we get onto a tiny boat and “sail” out into the dark. It is pitch black and so loud around us that we do not even hear the boat moving until we reach a silent grotto deep in the mountain. Looking up, there are hundreds of tiny lights shining above us in the dark. Before we can figure out if the glowworms form any constellations in the night sky, the boat heads back to the platform and we are guided back through the same narrow tunnels and over the same roaring water – but now we can see that above us here also twinkle little glowworm stars.
Back out in the light, and the “complimentary tea” in our numb hands, we get to watch a short movie showing us what we saw back there glowing in the dark: the glowworms turn out to be rather ugly little maggots with glowing buttocks, which they use to lure other insects to fly into their “fishing lines” – spider web like lines wrapped in sticky mucus. I am just glad that I did not try to touch the lights…
Back in Te Anau, we head on towards Milford and stop for the night right after the “Mirror Lakes” (Danke nochmal fuer den Tipp, Thomas) – of course not without having taken some really awesome pictures of mountains and clouds reflected in the surface of the lakes.