TRAVELING AROUND THE WORLD: Our Tales of Delights and Disasters by Shelley Row Page B

trees and ferns. The sun was warm and I felt like I could float there all day.
     
    With a glass of wine and a seat on the back deck, we watched the water and the mountains turn dusty colors as the sun dropped. Dinner was fresh fish and venison, with a variety of vegetables. But the main event was to follow. Everyone stayed awake until 10 pm to watch the darkening sky serve up the Milky Way. There are few things as astounding as a sky full of stars. I remembered standing in the backyard as a little girl as my dad showed me that same vast swath of tiny lights. And now, there we stood on the upper deck of the boat, barely able to see each other in the blackness. We oohed and aahed at the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere: the Southern Cross and the upside down zodiac configurations like Orion, standing on his head.
     
    I wish I could say we had a restful night, but we didn’t. The berths were not the most comfortable. Still, we woke in the middle of the Sound to quiet, peace and beauty. Chris started our trip back in the early morning hours. But this day was not full of blue sky. Rain sprinkled as we traveled, making the previous day all the more perfect. Chris returned us to the ferry dock and waved good-bye as his next guests arrived.
     
    Doubtful Sound was all we could have hoped for, and, as for New Zealand, well, it’s a cracka!

Sunday, March 6, 2011
    Tramping Through Gales, Mountains and Mud
    The Routeburn Trek in Fjordland National Park is considered one of the “Great Walks” of New Zealand. It involves three days and two nights on the trail. Mike and I walked it as part of a guided tour with Ultimate Hikes. The scenery was spectacular and we had spectacularly bad weather. We walked – or tramped, as the Kiwis say – through rain, snow, hail and gale-force winds. And it was still stunning.
     
    We showed up at the Ultimate Hikes Center in Queenstown for our pre-trek briefing and listened with increasingly sweaty palms as a perky, young woman told us how much we were going to enjoy the trek – even in the bad weather that was forecast. Prepare for the rain and cold, she advised. Hmmmm. It was the middle of the summer in New Zealand and the day had been beautiful and sunny. It couldn’t be that bad – could it?
     
    With borrowed backpacks and rain slickers, Mike and I showed up at dawn the next day. We met the others on our hike – twenty-four in all – and boarded the bus to the starting point of the trek outside of Te Anau. Buckled up and strapped into our backpacks (which suddenly felt heavier than they had the night before), the two of us dropped into line behind the guides – Hillary, Gina and Masa (our Japanese speaking guide) – and off we went. This would be Mike’s first overnight hike carrying a backpack – and he was doing it through the mountains of New Zealand. Lucky guy… although I’m not sure he always saw it that way. He never once complained!
     
    The entire first day, we hiked, gradually climbing, through mountain rainforests. A light mist hung in the air and the sky was overcast. There would be no mountain views that day, but it was okay as trees stole the show. The trees – small and huge – were encased in green moss and lichens. Rocks were blanketed with green and the ground between the trees was a mass of ferns. One of the women said it was like walking inside a terrarium. For me, it felt like fairy land. Any moment, I expected to round a bend and surprise a flock of fairies (do fairies travel in flocks?) hovering in the ferns and moss. Once we left the roadway behind, the forest was surprisingly quiet. Every so often, the chirp or twitter of a bird would sparkle in the distance. New Zealand is rejuvenating its native bird population, which was decimated by non-native predators like cats and stoats (small, vicious weasel-like animals). Consequently, birds are surprisingly scarce. Each sighting was a highlight. We walked along trying to take it all in. Photos can’t