Queenstown - Milford Sound by Bus

The weakest link in the chain. For me, at the moment, that would be my feet. Swollen from hiking. And when I talk about feet, my dear Swabians, I do not mean the Swabian Fuß, I mean the actual feet, so just the feet and not the whole leg. Especially around the bones. For me this is neither exciting nor new. It goes away again. So far it has gone away every single time. Until then, a short pause.

Where do I know this from? The first time I noticed swollen feet on myself was about twenty years ago, back in the good old student days, when on the fifteenth of the month I still did not have enough money for the current month’s rent, and I had already done the humiliating walk to the landlord, promising him the money would be in his account the following week. Then it would start on Friday afternoon or evening, pub or beer garden, working deep into the night, and by ten on Saturday morning I was already back in the beer garden, either all day or back to the pub again in the evening. Still absurdly cheerful, Sunday morning at Frühjazz on Schwaneninsel, only to finally get home at eight in the evening. Forty eight hours with maybe eight to ten hours of sleep in them and thirty four hours of work. The rest was time spent travelling somewhere while studying for the oral entrance test of some practical course. And with the glorious wage of 7.50 euros an hour, you just about scraped together the missing bit of rent.

Then on Sunday night I still had to write up lab reports for some practical, because my lab partner had already complained to the course coordinator that two weeks before the deadline there were still no reports from me, and she would really like to move her final oral exam forward so she could still squeeze in a two week holiday. So I worked through the night, finished the reports, then went to university, put money into the account, made the bank transfer, still had enough left for a pretzel, great, printed the reports, had trouble with the student council printer, somehow just passed the oral test at noon, then went home and finally took off my shoes. And there they were, two deeply swollen club feet.

What helps is putting your legs up. And that is what I did, by my standards at least, after I had checked into my accommodation. I knew I needed more time than the two days I had booked. Unfortunately that was not possible in this place. It was the weekend, everyone was pouring out into nature, and Queenstown is the outdoor mecca of the South Island. I would worry about that later. The first night was still very restless. Even getting up and going to the toilet became a logistical problem. On top of that I had impressive blisters on both little toes on my right foot, plus the big toenail on the left foot starting to come off. Walking downhill is simply not my thing.

The next day I lazed around in bed for ages before I finally went outside. The small black, as espresso is called here, was the actual driving force. I sat down by the lake, I had some work to do again. And every couple of hours I watched this old steamship dock right in front of me, lots of people on, lots of people off. Boat trip, nice. That was my plan for the evening. What I still did not have was any real plan for what to do from the next day onward. I only knew I had to get out of my accommodation.

I weighed options, possibilities, left it open, and boarded the TSS Earnslaw, a historic steamer that takes forty five minutes to cross Lake Wakatipu to Walter Peak. The ship has been in service since 1912 and is known as the Lady of the Lake. It is said to be one of the oldest and largest coal fired passenger steamships still operating anywhere in the world. One particularly nice detail is that during the trip you can go down into the engine room. So first I stood on deck and sailed into the sunset, surrounded by genuinely nice New Zealanders, all of whom got off at Walter Peak for the barbecue, which meant that on the return journey in the dark there were relatively few passengers left on board. Since it was too dark for photography anyway, I went down into the engine room. Impressive. And there it hit me rather painfully that my friend Bruno, sailor, helmsman with licence, has been dead for three years already.

Back in the hotel I had all the different plans going round in my head. Really I still want to do the Rees as soon as I can again, but I too am slowly running out of time. I did not want to spend the entire day in Queenstown dragging my luggage around. Te Anau and Milford Sound were booked out for the weekend. The Milford Track, supposedly one of the most beautiful tracks in the world, is booked out years in advance anyway. I did not want to head north yet. So I kept weighing things up and decided on two more nights in Queenstown, just to see how my feet would do, and then the next morning to take the bus to Milford Sound and back, with a cruise on the fjord and my luggage staying in the bus. An all inclusive package. I did not book food.

Booked and packed shortly before midnight, and at 6:45 am I was standing at the bus. Another driver, very cheerful, very talkative, telling us a lot again. First Te Anau, which lies on the largest lake in New Zealand, and naturally coffee in front of some tourist petrol station. There I met an older cycle tourist and admired his neon green mountain bike with Rohloff hub gear. Naturally we began talking shop. I really do regret a little that I am not travelling here by bike as well, and the man, really quite old, was full of enthusiasm for New Zealand and the rides. He said the route to Milford Sound was a very beautiful one, especially the descent after the tunnel. Really nice guy. Then he started praising the routes in Australia that you can ride in winter, though not the Australians.

Then on we went. Stop here, five minutes there, nearly run over by a horde of tourists who all wanted a photo in front of some mountain and lake, then on again. At some point it started becoming mountainous again as we entered Fiordland. Beautiful panorama, really beautiful scenery, up to the tunnel, through it and then down again. I would really love to do that descent by bike one day. Magnificent scenery, this whole fjord landscape. The bus driver kept on chattering and explaining.

What I learned was this: sound is actually the wrong word for the place. The names often come from early European naming and simply stuck, even though the geological classification is actually different. A sound is originally more a sea formed inlet or a flooded river valley, so not primarily glacial in origin. A fjord is created by glaciers. A glacier cuts a deep, steep sided U shaped valley, which is later flooded by the sea. And that is the joke with Milford Sound. It is called a sound, but geologically it is actually a fjord. Milford Sound has all the classic fjord features, steep rock walls, very deep water, and a clearly glacially formed landscape. A fjord, then, with the wrong historical name.

I learned even more on that bus ride. The Māori name for Milford Sound is Piopiotahi. Literally it means a single piopio. The piopio was a New Zealand songbird, now extinct. The best known story behind Piopiotahi is linked to Māui. Māui wanted to bring immortality to humankind and confronted Hine nui te pō, the goddess of death. He failed, and he died. According to that tradition, a single piopio then flew to Piopiotahi to mourn him there. Hence the name. Piopiotahi. A single piopio.

Beautiful, is it not. There are other stories as well. Piopiotahi also belongs to the larger Māori story that Tū te Rakiwhānoa shaped the wild landscape of the south, including Fiordland. In Māori tradition, especially among Ngāi Tahu, Tū te Rakiwhānoa is the shaper of the South Island. After the land was at first raw and wild, he formed mountains, valleys, waterways and the landscape in such a way that it became inhabitable. Fiordland, and therefore Piopiotahi as well, belongs to this great work of creation. A creation story, truly and uniquely beautiful.

Our bus driver, however, was also a kind of nanny. On the way down to the terminal he made us memorise the bus number, 1078. He explained in detail how everything would work, which queue we were supposed to join and when, which pier was ours, what the name of the boat was, and what would happen to the people flying back. He gave tips on where on the boat one should stand in order to get good photos. He made us repeat it all, again and again. After that the whole thing was fairly simple, and there we were on the boat, identifying the mountains. Mount Tūtoko, the highest in the region. Mitre Peak, the iconic mountain rising right from the fjord with its five peaks. The Lion. Mount Pembroke. The Elephant. Then the waterfalls, Lady Bowen and Stirling. And naturally he warned us that the swell would get rough as soon as we left the fjord and headed out into the Tasman Sea. The roughest ocean on the planet, that was the ship’s captain during one of his announcements. From there you could also clearly see St Anne Point, with its lighthouse that marks something like the end of the land. End of the line.

Then back again, another pause at certain points, back into the bus, which was easy enough to identify among the other five hundred tourist coaches thanks to our driver. The return journey was quiet, no more chatter in the bus, and the landscape drifted by until four hours later, in the evening, I found myself back in Queenstown. Into the next hotel, then out again in the evening to take night shots of the aurora by the lake, which was strong again that night.

Feet up overnight, and now it is a matter of waiting. I think I will go and sit by the lake now with a small black and continue working on the book.

In that spirit.