NZ Road Trip #8: Glowworm Caves & Fiordland

After spending some time in Queenstown, we moved on to our last stop: Fiordland (we did go back to Queenstown, to party two more days, though).

Even though the Fiords and Queenstown seem to be next to each other in a map, there's no road that directly connects both locations: you have to go all the way through Te Anau (aprox. 2 and a half or 3 hours) and from there to the Fiords its another 2 hours drive.

We spent the night in Te Anau, which is the last little town you'll come across with when driving to the Fiords. Since we arrived in Te Anau quite early, we decided to visit the Glowworm caves that evening. The excursion beginns with a boat trip across the Lake Te Anau. Then, once you arrive to the other side of the lake, you are divided into smaller groups to start discovering the caves. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed. But I managed to find some nice ones on the internet! (Thanks, google!).

Once deep inside the caves, you will be taken on a small boat into a hidden grotto where the only light you have is the one given by thousands of glowworms. The hungrier these little worms are, the more they glow! The glittering effect is memorable - you feel as if you were floating next to a thousand stars!

On the next day, we took the ride to the National Park. Since it was already May (that is, the beginning of the real winter was just around the corner), our boat trip around the Fiords is the coldest memory of our trip (you can see this from the pictures!). The boat takes you through the Fiords over until you reach the Tasman Sea, where the wind is the strongest - I don't remember the speed the captain mentioned on the microphone, but I do remember the feeling of having to hold myself to the cruise and sometimes letting it go to find out how it feels to lean against the wind (awesome!). This is what we got to see:

I can't believe this is the end of my posts about New Zealand... There are so many places I didn't manage to see - damn, 2 weeks - 1 country - two islands is really not enough! I'll find some other time to go, probably not far from now... since the whole asia-pacific region is the most attractive for me.

I remember that, when I was a kid, I used to have this huge map of the World hanging above my bed. I knew so many countries and capitals! Now I forgot most of them - I like to think that my brain is now full, and having pushed in all the finance stuff, there was no space left for countries and capitals (the unofficial version is that 3 years of live-fast, party-hard have their secondary brain effects). On that map, I had 2 needles (one on the Canary Islands and another one on Australia) and one red thread that connected these needles. I was 9 years old, and obsessed with visiting the other side of the World.

Getting to the point: I'm sure I'll go back soon. For a longer time. For whatever reason. And hopefully I'll come back with that beautiful english accent.