Last night I didn't sleep well even with the help of a pair of ear plugs. This was due to Bernard sleeping in the bunk bed above me, his snore bounced directly off the ceiling just above him, and this apparently had amplified the sound and created a "surround sound" effect before reaching my ears. Nevertheless, I tried my best to sleep. We woke up at 7:30am., washed up and sneaked quietly into the kitchen for breakfast as everyone was still asleep. The surrounding was so silent, even the clingging sound between the cutlery created quite a noise. For breakfast, we had half boilded eggs and toast; while I also prepared sandwiches with fried egg, ham and Edam cheese as our lunch packs.
After checking out, Bernard dropped me at "Budget 1,2,3", a souvenir shop operated by 2 young Japanese girls, to get some lanolin cream. We said goodbye to Queenstown after that.
The route along the way to Te Anau was again astoundingly scenic. Since it was drizzling, the cloud was low and thick fog had formed. I tried to catch up with my sleep in the car but did not forget to remind Bernard to wake me up if there was any spectacular view along the way. He ended up waking me up every 1 or 2 minutes. So, in the end, as expected I did not get any rest at all.
The journey to Te Anau took about 2 hours. It appeared to be a town much bigger than what I had imagined. There was even a cinema and a Fresh Choice Hypermarket. If we had known it earlier, we would not have packed all the groceries from Queenstown.
Bernard suggested we ate by the lake side but we could not manage to even take our first bite because the rain drops started to get bigger. We were forced to move back into our car. There, we quitely ate the icy cold sandwich and naturally chilled cranberry juice.
I had also finally dicovered the culprit that produced the little feathers that was flying all over inside our car and had seemed to be following us everywhere we went for the past few days. It was from the inner layer of my green winter jacket that I bought from China! Initially we blamed it on the pillows of YHA Tekapo but now the case was closed. Still, I had to continue wearing it at least for the Milford Sound trip tomorrow, as it was waterproof. I did not plan to waste money to get another one here due to 2 reasons. Firstly, I will never wear it back home in Malaysia. Secondly, another winter jacket will make my baggage over weight.
That afternoon, for our glow worm cave expedition, we first reported ourselves at Real Journey office, next to the wharf. We boarded on a cruise that took us to Aurora Cave, which is 30 minutes away from the wharf, on the isolated land across the lake.
The glow worm cave experience was amazing. We were first taken for a short walk into the limestone cave. We then hopped into a small boat that took us into the dark cold cave. I almost felt like crying when the cave turned total darkness and the ceiling of the cave turned into a little galaxie. The "stars" that we saw above us was light released by glow worms when they burn their energy to attract insects for their meal.
New Zealand's sky was always clear at night, where you can easily see millions of stars when you look upwards. I was stunned to know that this country even has her own underworld galaxie, in a cave below the water level. The glittering underworld reminded me of Buddha's teaching. He said that the universe is made up of 3000 galaxies, where each galaxy is formed by 1000 little galaxies (三千大千世界), and each of the galaxy being made up of millions of planet respectively. In addition, there is more than one Universe.
In another word, our planet earth, is just one of millions of stars in the galaxy, which is itself one of millions of galaxies in the universe. So who am I, merely a tiny little organism in a small planet? Each of the glow that I saw on the cave ceiling represents a life. There were so many of them, striving to be alive. And when you remain alive, you contribute your glow to the world. This was definitely an unforgettable memory for me. Also, I wish my mum can witness this in her lifetime too. Unfortunately, there was no picture captured to prove what I said because photography is prohibitted in the cave as flash light will disturb the habitat of the worms, which only can live in total darkness. (Photos shown here are courtesy of Real Journeys).
The cruise sent us back to the wharf at 4.30pm. We then checked in at YHA Te Anau. This time we were given a little double room on ground floor. This place was obviously more modern and clean looking compared to YHA Tekapo. The kitchen was huge and fully equipped. I also found out that the 12 rooms on the ground floor shared only one bathroom and toilet for each gender. Surprisingly, the toilet was never crowded and we did not have to queue up even once. I guess people here did not shower as frequent as we Malaysians do.
That night, I prepared a not so tasty meal for dinner, "tomato paste fried vermicelli", a recipe recommended by Bernard. I did not have salt, oyster sauce or sugar, all of which for me are key ingredients. I also replaced meat with ham. So, the result was expected, a major disaster. But who cares? We are hardcore backpackers tonight!
We only had one thing in our mind, the renowned Milford Sound Nature Cruise, which is due tomorrow morning! Couldn't wait any longer! We finished our dinner and went to bed in our little galaxy, which was the little room #8.
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