This morning was very hygienic for me. I actually brushed my teeth last night for the first time since the morning we left. This morning I showered and, also for the first time since we left, shaved. It’s weird being that clean again, almost.
I drove today. It was a lot of driving. First we drove something like 100 kilometers down to Milford Sound. The drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound is said to have the most beautiful scenery in all of New Zealand, and after seeing it, I think I agree. I mean, I haven’t seen all of New Zealand yet, but I think it’s gotta be pretty tough to beat what I saw after we went through the tunnel. There are no words to describe the breathtaking mountains and forests and rivers and trees and everything that we saw. Then we saw the burned out husk of a blown up tour bus sitting on the side of the road. It couldn’t have been there very long because there was some type of a public service vehicle parked in front of it, I don’t think it was a cop but I could be wrong, standing there scratching his head. We weren’t really in a position to stop and gawk so we continued on.
It was $65 per person to take the boat tour. I can feel next month’s bills not getting paid. But we think it was worth it. The scenery off of the actual Milford Sound (which is, according to the tour narration, not actually a sound, but a fiord) is unbelievable. I got lots of video, including the boat shoving itself nosefirst into a waterfall, twice. On the way back in to the dock, we stepped downstairs for a bit into the café area and got some soup.
I feel that the soup itself constitutes a new chapter in our lives. This was excellent soup. It was two dollars a cup for a little Styrofoam coffee cup of this tomato soup, which was described by the lady who gave it to us as "very oniony" although I didn’t think it was that oniony. It was quite simply the best soup ever, and I don’t much care for tomato soup regularly. After we ate the soup and were walking back toward our van ("Lucida" or "Lucy"), Amanda began to sing songs about the soup, which included lyrics such as, "Soooooouuuupp. Sooooooouuup!! Soupy soooooooooouuuup! It’s so goooooooooood. Soupy soupy sooooouup!!!"
We then returned exactly the way we came, over 100 kilometers, back to Te Anau because that is the only road in and out of Milford Sound. I guess they want to build a quicker route for the tourists, but it’s being opposed by many people, especially from Te Anau, because the new route would have to go through national parks and also Te Anau’s entire economy would disappear since it’s built on the tourism that’s forced to come through en route to Milford Sound. Anyway, we ended up eating in Te Anau again, this time at a convenience store/chicken stand type thing. Their sign said, "Fish & Chips" and beneath that, "Chicken & Chips," so we had Chicken & Chips. It was pretty good for the price we paid for it. Then we had ice cream. Then we discovered that I am too retarded to work the pumps at the gas station.
From Te Anau we drove to Queenstown, stopping first so that Amanda could rinse Sprite out of her shoe. At that same stop I decided to go pee, and promptly discovered a urinal even worse than the one at the albatross place. Take that urinal, from the albatross place, and remove the grate. Instead of standing over the drain I am now on a cement block well behind the trough, still pissing on the wall, although now there is nothing to catch the little dribbles at the end, it’s just going straight down between my shoes. A less observant man would probably get it on his feet. At least these ones flushed…unendingly. When I had walked into the restroom I saw three of these monstrosities, acting as waterfalls in their own right. When I was finished, I washed my hands, and discovered nothing to dry them with. It’s not like the paper towel dispensers were empty, it’s that there were none…nor any blowdryers, nor the cloth towel rolly things. Just pants.
We continued to Queenstown. We stopped again at a lookout over a lake which we can’t remember the name of, only that it was the most beautiful shade of blue ever to have human eyes set upon it. There is no way that our pictures or video will do it justice, this is one of the many things about New Zealand which simply must be viewed with your own eyes. It was so brilliantly amazing.
We’ve not yet seen much of Queenstown. We arrived, drove around nervously (I probably looked like an idiot to the traffic behind me), and somehow found our way to a free public parking lot. At least, Amanda thinks it’s free…I’m not sure. In any case Lucy didn’t get towed away while we walked around to find a payphone. Amanda called a place to see if we could get a cabin for the night, meanwhile Alyssa and I stood outside the phonebooth discussing things such as the Lord of the Rings store across the street (which was closed) and the boat around Milford Sound. See, there was this guy that was checking Amanda out for the entire trip. Staring, really, and not being subtle about it in the least. I said, that’s ok, I was checking his girlfriend out too. Alyssa found this funny. When Amanda emerged from the phonebooth she informed us that the place was all out of cabins, but there was a lodge we could get for a little less than twice the price. Then she looked at me and said, "And who were you checking out?!" Alyssa found this funny as well, so I explained the situation to her. We all had a good laugh and she continued to chastise me for the rest of the night, in what I assume was a mostly unserious playful manner. Hmm. We called a few more places for accommodations and ended up settling for the cabin from the first place.
Although Queenstown seems to be the first place we’ve been to since Christchurch with even a semblance of nightlife, we opted to stay in since it was getting fairly late (9:30ish) and we had stuff to do like write in this journal and charge our electronic devices. I said I didn’t feel so bad about not going out tonight as long as we get to spend some time in town tomorrow, this looks like it could be the city to change my mind about this country. So far I think it’s beautiful, but uninteresting otherwise. You can only look at beautiful scenery for so long before you need something to do.
I’m hoping that tomorrow, I’ll find a record shop, and buy something, anything, so that we can listen to something other than that Kerrang! CD a-fucking-gain. We’ve seriously listened to it about 50 times now, because the majority of New Zealand has no radio and it remains the only CD we have.
Tomorrow, I hope to avoid being dragged onto the Queenstown Gondola. It’s like the first gondola, in Christchurch, except almost vertical, and to the top of a bigger mountain. It makes me cringe just looking at it from many kilometers away.
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