Today was a bit of a special, unexpected day. More of that in a second.
I have been feeling rubbish for the last week. However, a couple of days ago I made a good friend called Charlotte and that cheered me up. We spent two great days playing with a green chair. I should perhaps mention she was 18months old. Normally I don't play with chairs, even nice green ones. Last night I was sitting on a bean bag in front of the tv, feeling like I was about to cry I was in so much pain when she came up behind me and gave me a kiss on my cheek and shoved half a chewed caramel bisuit in my mouth. She was so cute. I am very broody now though!
So - today. I woke up after a day in bed yesterday and remarkably felt a bit better than I have all week. It was a beautiful sunny day too and so I rang a company on the offchance they were operating. They are called Southern Alps Air and I rang them a lot last week seeing if their plane trip from Wanaka to Milford Sound was operating. Every day they didn't have the numbers and I kept keeping my fingers crossed that they wouldn't even as I rang because of how I felt. But I rang today, and they had someone in the office at that moment asking to go, so they said to drive down and as long as the weather didn't change we could go up.
I was definitely unsure about driving to Wanaka considering how bad I have been feeling, but I so wanted to see Milford Sound; supposedly one of the most beautiful places on earth, so I covered myself in great swathes of sticking plaster (including my neck, which was a painful place to rip it off of at the end of the day).
I had the most brilliant drive down. I saw lake Pukaki, which has Mount Cook overlooking it. I was so excited, and had my music blaring so loudly I almost started jumping up and down out of excitement. Sometimes having a bad back saves me from embarrassing myself! I drove through absolutely gorgeous scenary and eventually got to Wanaka. There was one other woman (who I actually shared a room with in this hostel a week ago) and a family also waiting. We flew in a tiny, wobbly, old plane down to Milford Sound (I was petrified) and saw even more amazing sights. It was a bit hairy when we got to the Tasman sea - the breezes caught sight of us and decided to give us a good shake, but eventually we came in over Milford sound and landed.
I then did a boat trip down the length of the sound. It was beautiful. Even better, some DOLPHINS (hurrah!) were swimming and came and swam alongside the boat for a good 15 minutes which was fantastic. There was a mother and calf and around 10 other adults, all beautiful. We also saw fur seals and a penguin, plus several waterfalls. Milford Sound is famous for sandflies, but I wasn't bitten by one! Amazing! I did see some though and they were giants.
Finally we came back to where the plane was and flew back, passing lots of tents near a town called Glenorchy, which was the cast and crew of a new X Men film, which is filming out here at the moment. So cool!
I was Sooooo pleased to get back on the ground - those little planes terrify me. But the views were worth it. I had a very tiring, very sore drive back but I am off to bed now with an orange and have all day to rest here. Hopefully a trip to the hot pools will sort me out.
It was such a good day, and it so nearly didn't happen. I met several very grumpy tourists today, it did slightly dampen my spirits but they will soon be forgotten and I have so many photos and memories which will remain.
