They say travel broadens the mind, and I'm not sure if thats true. It could be true, but you could return home just as narrow minded as you started out. Travelling in your own country, now theres a great opportunity.
One of my many rash new years declarations that i made this year was to travel all around the country and visit all the city sized places i have not yet been to. Since I had leave accrued I thought I would head down south. It turns out May is really not the best time to travel. Theres currently a lot of storms and wet weather going on down there. I've been keeping an eye on the 7 day forecast and it doesn't look too promising.
On the news they were talking about all the stranded trampers on the Milford track, one of NZ's "great walks" and saying how stupid they all were to get caught out in the wet weather like that. I've never been on the Milford track, but it is something I intend to do at least once in my lifetime, and I know its sort of like a constantly moving conveyor belt of people, especially in summer. You can't stay more than one night in each hut because theres always more people starting as people finish at the other end. And its usually booked out well in advance.
So most of the poor stranded trampers were already partway into the track before the deluge hit and they all got stuck because some bridge at the beginning of the track got washed out apparently.
One of the things I planned to do on my trip next week is to take a day trip from Queenstown through Te Anau to Milford sound (boat cruise) and back. However I see that that road might be closed due to the whitestone bridge being washed out somewhere near Te Anau. Since i was intending for that to be one of the highlights of my trip, I hope they can find an alternate route or fix the road sometime in the next 5 days. Quite selfish of me, but we'll see what happens.
I shouldn't really have such a she'll be right attitude, especially as i haven't booked any kind of travel insurance but I bought some thermals and a raincoat this morning, as a kind of preemptive I hope I don't need it but at least if i do then i'm prepared.
I'm so looking forward to my trip. I love sightseeing. I hope my camera doesn't break down like it did last time.
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