It rained lightly on day one of our Fiordland excursion. No surprise there, All was misted, drizzled and foggy, though windows of clarity opened when I needed them. I took a lot of photos, in touristic tradition, and waved at the sandfly clouds. There were peaks, majestically mist-enshrouded, and bottlegreen depths from which erupted dolphins. We ventured some distance into the Tasman Sea, but the rolling waves turned some of us grey and we retreated back into the calmness of the fjord. I'd have liked to have steamed on but Roly's gills were greening.
On shore, tutu reigned. It had been employed as a cover-up plant by the electricity people and it's still doing the job all these years later. Nobody, I'm told, has eaten it and died.
(On the boat now, heading back across a glassy Lake Manapouri, tired and speaking in the present tense :-)
'Mosses and lichens drip from and cling to everything. Waterfalls bisect mountain faces. The water beneath the launch is a massive, 3-dimensional Rorschach inkblot.
Ross's dear wife is providing our evening meal and is probably now, pinny-clad and dusted with flour, patting dumplings into shape and basting beef. We're all hungry. There's to be introductory wine and southern hospitality. I can think of worse ways to end the day.
Perhaps our boat, half way across the lake now, will strike a reef and sink.
I eye the life-jacket cupboard.'
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