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| Passing through Fiordland National Park on the way to Milford Sound. There's water everywhere! |
The only thing I can hear above the roaring streams of thick water running into the Tasman Sea is the click click click of cameras trying to record every minute of it. This is the first tourist thing that I have actually paid for since arriving in New Zealand, and now I understand why it’s called a “tourist thing”. I’m on a cruise in the middle of Milford Sound, the Eighth Wonder of the Natural World, during a torrential downpour and chronic mist storm, and all I can see are all the people taking pictures of waterfalls.
Even to limit this place to the word “waterfall” feels wrong. It is not
just one waterfall, but a million tiny chains of water tumbling down overgrown
cliff sides into more water below. The cliffs are so high that I can’t see the
top of their source mountain. Each unique river pattern flows down the cliff face
in improvised formations, whether that means falling straight into the
water after a 200 foot drop, or bouncing down ten million tiny leaf edges and tree
roots until mixing gently with the ocean. There are impossibly large falls,
appearing messy and carnivorous as they devour entire faces of mountains, and
then there are impossibly small falls, just a single stream making it’s way
through the vertical undergrowth.
I’m standing on the top deck, the wind is so loud, I can’t hear the
captain talk over the microphone. The rain blasts sting my eyes, so I put my sunglasses
on to see through the crawling fog. I came up here to avoid the crowds, which
comes at a cost: my body is shaking with cold. I can't really feel my face anymore, after ten minutes of being pelted with sleet. My fingers can no longer extend fully and I hear them crack when I try. But my life is pretty darn
tranquil with plentitude. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. There’s nowhere
else I’d rather be. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
I’m jealous of the fat sea lions, laying on rocks and watching the
trees grow on vertical mountain faces. They don't even look cold and as one rolls over, it's belly spills out onto the rock edge and it's snout takes the spray of a dazzling drop. I’m jealous of the captain of the ship
who has probably saturated on the beauty of Milford Sound after so many
experiences of such magnitude. To see this place in every season, in every mood, would be magical. Even on cloudy days, there are still rainbows. I’m jealous of all the people talking pictures, because
they may/might/possibly will come out of this with a photograph that will
describe the complete experience of being so small in such a delicately
constructed natural place.
But most of all, I’m happy to exist at that moment in time because
this is one of those things that you have to see to believe.
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| Milford Sound. To much to comprehend in just a picture. You need to go there. |