Our Tour to Milford Sound, New Zealand

Milford Sound ... Visiting by Bus

Milford Sound isn't that far from Queenstown as the crow flies, but it's a 12 hour round trip on the tour we took, departing at a sensible 8:15 am. As fate would have it, our bus driver "Oz" (give me a break) is an Australian turned New Zealander. Apparently, if you are an Aussie, it's fairly easy to get permanent residency in NZ. For some reason, the government likes us and gives us special treatment.

Mountains en-route to Milford Sound

He didn't say why he had transplanted to NZ many years ago, but locals tell is us it's a great escape from child maintenance that may otherwise be payable by men in Australia who don't wish to pay it. I'm not of course casting aspersions at Oz ... he may simply prefer the NZ way of life instead of the Aus way of life. Each to his own, but I'm advised that escaping child maintenance is a common motivation for expat Australians.

As would be expected, the trip to Milford Sound is via mainly winding roads and as it had recently rained, there were streaks of water creating water falls in most of the hills we passed. The driver gave us an ongoing oratory about the history, character and special events etc we passed, but of course by the time we had got to Milford Sound we had forgotten most of them. Information overload, but interesting at the time.

Some of the wild life here is unique. We haven't as yet seen a genuine, non-plastic kiwi, but hope to do so before the end of our trip. We saw a statue of a Moa, a larger, more imposing version of the emu at Queenstown.

According to one information board I read, the flightless birds of NZ were once capable of flight, but because there are very few ground level predators, they lost the faculty of flight because it was no longer needed. Now, I'm no evolutionary biologist, but that sounds like a lot of codswallop to me.

Evolutionary biology is full of examples of products that didn't quite work out. It seems more likely to me that the creatures grew wings that didn't work. Why would you give up the ability to do something very effective and functional? Everyone who's read Dawkins' books knows that reptiles grew wings to be able to traverse territory better and to do things like move from tree to tree. Present day lizards with large skin folds between their front and rear legs that glide are testimony to a work in progress; long after we have moved on, they will likely have wings.

The most favoured bird here is the Kea, a type of parrot which is large and apparently very friendly and playful (lovingly referred to as clown birds). We saw a couple on the ground while waiting to enter a tunnel on our return to Queenstown from Milford Sound, but unfortunately never got up close and personal to them.

Milford Sound is probably just a little more spectacular than the whole area here. The hills are a bit taller, the lake just as nice, and of course there is a fleet of tourist vessels waiting to take the thousands of tourists, like us, for a two hour cruise up the sound, which is really a fjord.

The slow, two hour trip up and back along the fjord as far as the Tasman Sea is pleasant with plenty of photographic opportunities. A handful of furry seals was lolling about on a rock providing a different sort of photographic opportunity from the rock walls of the escarpment and the dozens of waterfalls. Apparently the first few metres of the lake is fresh water with an underlying salt water base. Makes sense to me.

Having done the 12 hour trip, I don't think I'd bother to do it all again, but now I can say in true New Zealand speak, "bin thire, done thet."

Robin

Visiting New Zealand

Queenstown, obviously one of the best kept secrets

At left are a partial view of Queenstown from the mountain top and of their equivalent to a beach at the edge of the township.

We flew into New Zealand after a three hour, pleasent enough trip from Sydney and the first thing we saw was the huge rugged mountain range. I remember wondering where there would likely be a piece of flat ground sufficient for an aircarft to land. Sure enough, the aircraft turned around and there it was, the Queenstown Airport, neatly tucked away among the suburbs of Queenstown.

Shuttling into the city centre, we arrived at the Nomads Backpackers Lodge after about a 15 minute drive. Our room, an ensuite on the third floor and designed for a person in a wheel chair was larger than we expected and nicely appointed. Even though there are only two of us, it's nice to have enough room to swing a cat just in case one gets the compulsion and opportunity to do so. (I hate cats!)

Queenstown was a surprise. I had expected a lot of old buildings reminiscent of Sydney, but the place looks surprisingly modern and is attractively laid out with nice roads, parks and of course Lake Wakapitu nearby. The lake is very imposing ... huge and fresh water, although surprisingly the Queenstown Golf Course, where the 2014 Golf Open was being held, looked incredibly brownish ... they don't irrigate from the dam. Couldn't believe it, but according to the locals, it usually rains sufficiently not to have to irrigate, but of late, it's been a bit dry. Well, dry for a few weeks, which by NZ standards is a serious drought.

The goods and services tax rate in NZ is apparently 15% which probably partly accounts for the generally higher cost of living than in Australia. Beer and wine seemed expensive as did most other things. If nothing else the exchange rate between the AUD and the NZD was marginally in our favour, but nothing to get too excited about when compared with countries like Vietnam where we can live like kings for almost nothing Australian.

We walked about the city and visited the lookout after a gandola ride. Beautiful views of thel ake and nearby regions. Younger, more keen people bungy jump, fly and ride a luge, which isn't a luge in ice or snow, but a plastic tray with wheels and a steering handle which also acts as a brake. There are different gradients so that the beginners don't wipe themselves out on a hairpin bend.

At the airport a customs official saw "Place of birth: Queenstown" on my passport and said, "Oh, so you were born here?" I replied, "Regrettably no, my Queenstown is in Tasmania and nowhere as beautiful as yours."

Tomorrow is another day and we still have about four weeks to go.

Robin

Defeating Boredom in Retirement

Yesterday, I finally realised my problem ... I'm dying, not from old age or any identified disease, but from boredom. I guess it doesn't really matter what we die from, we were only ever promised three score years and ten and found out that it was a lie. People die at all ages.

Visit Vancouver and do some beer tasting

The key to dying is to have a "healthy death". That is, be rolling along in a healthy state and have a massive stroke or cardiac failure that ends one's life. Far better than lingering along with a dodgy ticker or getting more and more bored and eventually falling off one's perch.

Death is inconvenient because it comes when we least expect it and probably don't want it. I say probably don't want it because I'm sure I will get so disheartened with the state of the world and Australia that I'll be pleased that I'm only visiting. When I see my friends die and wish it had been me, I'll know it's time to get my stuff in order. So far, so good.

But, back to boredom. I tell my grandson that boredom is a state of mind, that there are no uninteresting subjects, just disinterested people. I don't know that I believe what I say, but I do try to practise it. Every morning when I arise from a usually disruptive, unfulfilling sleep, feeling like I've just reached the end of my day and need to go to bed, I decide that today will be a good day and I will be positive. Then I make the fatal mistake of switching on the news. Blah!

So, if you have the positive attitude, what do you do to alleviate the boredom?

First of all, you have to find out what are the reasons you are bored. That's not rocket science. There you were, arising early each morning, showering and shaving, getting dressed and heading off to work. If you were lucky you had a job that was interesting most of the time and provided at least a tad of self-esteem and status for you. You got paid a wad of money every so often, socialised with a variety of other people. There was perhaps even some eye candy you could look at and perhaps fantasize about (if only they weren't young enough to be your daughter). Most of all, you managed to fill in a substantial part of your day with the minutia of work.

When you retire, you have all day to do nothing. But you realise that the same things that kept you motivated while at work may work when retired. Okay, so you've gone from being the CEO of some impressive multinational company, or perhaps a cleaner at the local school. Either way, you are now nobody and the damn housework still needs to be done most days; vacuuming, mopping, dusting, washing dishes, washing clothes, hanging them out to dry. You still have to eat so someone has to buy food, prepare it, cook it and then clean up. Now, instead of having a team of underlings to get your coffee, send your faxes, put petrol in the company car, you're "it." And the worst bit is that you don't get paid. You are now attached by the hip to your superannuation account or if you are really unlucky, to a government pension that hardly provides enough for you to eat,let alone pay for holidays or a new car when your 1993 Toyota finally chucks it in.

By now, if you have made any spiritual progress in life, you've realised that there is no one who looks down from heaven and looks after you and the other seven billion people on the planet. You know you are on your own no matter how hard you wish it were otherwise. You also know that nature doesn't give a rat's bootlace what happens to you or anything or anybody else; she just goes on her own way creating and destroying universes and worlds as she has for eternity.

None of this helps you to find someone else to fix up your problem, you are all on your own. Survive or die from boredom.

The key is to keep busy ... fill in the empty hours with some type of activity. Anything you find interesting and can afford. Try to fill your calendar with so much stuff you haven't got time to think of being bored or dying from boredom.

Merlin the Magician, in the "Sword in the Stone" (TH White, 1938) said, "The best thing for being sad is to learn something. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder in your veins. The best thing for it then is to learn something."

Change "sad" for "bored" and you have a partial solution. Learn something.

With all the free time you have after you do your chores, you can enrol in that 10 week Asian cooking class. You can volunteer somewhere where your help is needed. Get yourself a friend who you can meet for coffee, card games, or anything else that appeals to both of you. Take up a new hobby ... something you had always wanted to do, but didn't because work got in the way. Play golf. Play tennis. Ride a bike. Take up beer tasting, collect watches or wine, do something.

Merlin was part right. Learning something new is part of the solution. The real solution however, is to keep yourself so busy you haven't got time to be bored. Retirement, if you are lucky, is a second chance at life. It's time to do all those things you haven't previously had the opportunity to do. Okay, so scuba diving or sky diving may be a bit difficult with your crook back, high blood-pressure and arthritic legs, but there is still many other options.

Instead of sitting around waiting to get sick and die, get out and make the best of the last years of your life. For all you know, it may be the only life you'll have.

Robin