Since we stayed in Queenstown for the night before kayaking, we actually woke up at 4am to drive to Te Anu which was about 2 hours away. At 6am, we were picked up by our guides along with the other people joining us for the adventure. From there, we headed into the Fiordlands by a small van with small stops along the way.
As we drove through to our destination, our guides gave us some interesting information about the area and to warn us about the horse flies we were about to encounter. Honestly, no amount of warning would have prepared us for those things. Imagine bugs that were about 2-3x bigger than fruit flies that swarm and bite you.
You are probably thinking "Fallon, we get bit by mosquitoes all the time, whats the big deal?". Well dear sir, these are not like mosquitoes. They actually swarm around you and attack but when they bite, they don't let go for ANYTHING. You can swat, blow, brush them off, but they will continue to attack. After biting you, they will leave bumps similar to those of mosquitoes but they actually stay for much longer, think 2-3weeks.
After hearing that, you might think that you would never want to visit this place but it's worth it anyway. As long as you can endure the first hour or two, by the time you end your tour the wind from the sea actually blow them away from the coast and you are free!
As for the kayaking, we spent about 4 hours kayaking around the sound with lunch included AND we got to see some seals and penguins!! Lunch was on a small rock formation in the middle of the sound. The guides even made us hot chocolate to warm us up before we headed back to the starting point.
After lunch, the wind had picked up and fortunately for us it was blowing back into the sound aka our starting point. We had tried to use a sail to get us back most of the way but since the wind was too strong, we had to resort to paddling against the current back to land. It was very intense, but hey we ran the marathon so we could have do anything at that point!
On the way back, we stopped by several stops to drink water so clean you tasted absolutely nothing. We also had time for some jump shots! After jumping, the entire van passed out due to exhaustion, except for the driver of course.
Our amazing guides doing a jump shot of their own!
If you are planning a trip to New Zealand and if you are trying to find something to in the South Island, I highly recommend sea kayaking or at least taking a tour of either Milford sound or Doubtful sound! The company we went with was Sea Kayak Fiordland, website is : https://www.seakayakfiordland.co.nz/
No comments:
Post a Comment