Two wacky humans: one short, one long, both wearing tie dye and a headtorch each, acquire kayaks two hours after sunset from a fellow traveler who is equally clueless. One will definitely float, while the other one may very well sink! Perhaps to be saved by some empty milk bottles and pool noodles stashed inside by our great salesman. Both will turn around aimlessly in circles when paddled in open water, being designed for rivers of course. One must always choose gear wisely with important criteria in mind, such as “how can we make this adventure test our equanimity more?” (spoken like good vipassana students) i.e. how can we make this more difficult…as only then it will be a true adventure – when we don’t know the outcome!
After a windy paddle in the queenstown lake we establish that both kayaks float and are more difficult to capsize than expected. Besides when Joakim, not yet a fully realised neoprene fairy in a wetsuit and tutu, tries to climb into his kayak through his pre-attached splash skirt filling up his kayak with a volume of water that would challenge the floatation capacity of his pool noodles. Now he wears the skirt everyday and entering the kayak is “easy as”. Keeping things easy seems to be our thing until it isn’t. Thinking it seemed “easier” to put the kayaks upright on the roof rack, as the underbelly seemed flatter AND it meant we could store gear inside them, we essentially opted to turn our floatation devices into rainwater collection tanks as we cruised into a 48 hour downpour. Then it became not-so-easy for the van to make it up hills, for us to get the kayaks off the roof, or for any remnant of the word “dry” to be associated with our milford sound adventure.
We arrived in the sound after a very rainy drive through the breathtaking fiordlands. Temporary waterfalls, appearing on a dry day as nothing more than a slipway of smooth rock carved out between frames of thicker foliage, are now gushing with streams of silky white. We watch the intricate capillary system of the water cycle vasodilate in front of our eyes. It makes me wonder if the earth whispered “hmmm some of us are a little thirsty down here” and the sky, hearing everything, opened wide to satiate the mountain top lakes with rainwater that would in turn use these capillaries to replenish the water table in the earth’s belly. “Thank you, I am satisfied now, I can provide for the trees and the people” the earth says with gratitude. And just like that the clouds float away to provide rain elsewhere as needed and the sun prepares to beam down in the clear skies of the following day: poised to provide sunlight to the plants after such a nourishing feed as this. And how welcomed we feel as the rain eases and the sun peers down at us… “wanna play?”
It takes us the whole morning to figure out how best to pack for our little adventure. We need to waterproof all of our gear as the rain, lack of splash-skirt on my behalf and high possibility of Joakim’s kayak sinking to the bottom of the sound were all very real. After a lengthy game of tetris, with very little attention paid to symmetry, our gear and food are in the kayaks and we are paddling. River kayaks don’t glide with the ease one imagines when dreaming of a cruisy paddle mission through somewhat still waters. The shape of the hull is designed for speed and maneuverability in the fast flowing white water of rivers… so as soon as we catch the water at too much of an angle or with too much force, we are helplessly spun around to face the direction from which we had just come. A lesson in equanimity at its finest… how peaceful can we stay in one of the most majestic places on earth… practically synonymous with peace… when our gear is spinning us in circles? Not to mention that the wind has picked up now, creating very messy surface conditions on the layer of fresh water that floats atop the no-doubt surgy ocean currents of the denser salt water below. We paddle into the sound with a big feeling of “what are we doing?”. I ask Joakim if he has ever had a kayak spin like this before (not yet understanding the physics of the river kayak hull) and he shouts back to me in the wind “I’ve never really kayaked before”. I laugh… two clueless kayakers at the bottom of the earth.
As we progress towards the centre of the sound, the waves start to grow in size, each one adding to the ever growing volume of water in my kayak. We opt to take refuge in the wind shelter of the fiords that run on the southern aspect of the sound. With calmer waters we are able to really take it all in. The vertical cliffs of the fiords seem to shoot out of the water and towards the sky forever. As I gaze up at their summits I feel small. Rock is pulled towards space while I am sat low in my kayak. A feeling of sitting, sinking, being in the earth… so heavily grounded here right now but at the same time weightlessly floating everywhere all at once.
I look behind me at Joakim. He looks so small, so random, comical, abstract… ripples run off his kayak as he strokes the water one paddle at a time. Green mossy cliff faces tower over him and remind me of useless beautiful things. Things that exist just because (it’s never just because of course!). Things that are “not useful” to the modern human so obsessed with completing, ticking off, conquering. Green mossy cliff faces that no human could climb due to the soft, smooth, slippery surface of the wall. Unconquerable, unpeakable… useless? Or more useful at providing true perspective than any attainable goal? My kayak spins again… but I embrace it this time, for a moment finding peace in this absurd life, this absurd love – soft, smooth, slippery. We continue to hug the cliff on our left, learning from the water that less is more; that gentle is greater; the less we try to direct our kayaks the more they can carry us effortlessly in the right direction.
It became time to cross the sound towards our home for the night, We brace ourselves for a splashy affair but are gifted smooth-ish sailing. Harrison’s cove in plain sight, we see we are approaching a pebble beach with a river on the right, that runs deep into the steep valley that frames it. Slanted snow caps come into view as the clouds thin further in the afternoon sun. They remind me that these fiords were once home to glaciers. Gigantic glaciers that brimmed over these walls and took root under these waters. Glaciers that, as the earth started to warm up, melted slowly and pulled with them sharp rocks: the architects and carpenters of this landscape. Feet on the land we have a new test of our patience: sandflies. Movement is always a good remedy and we explore our cove home by sliding from fallen trees polished tirelessly with the elbow grease of time to marble rocks licked many times over by the tongues of these waters. A place so full of the drama of sheer cliffs, vertical walls, gushing waterfalls and towering heights, upon closer look, is remarkably soft and gentle in the details.
We drink from the river and share theories of creation as we place footprints in the sand that will soon wash away. It is hard not to marvel at creation in spaces like these. We cook dinner on our little gas stove and wonder what our mode of survival would have been without it – it feels as if dry wood for fires could simply never exist in a place with as much rainfall as this (more than 200 days a year). We feel the mountains listening to us knowingly. I guess that is why they have had an existence of such solitude in comparison to other more accessible and inhabitable natural phenomena. It’s simply not easy for humans to live here and never has been. We juggle smooth stones at dusk and play Goenkaji’s audio in our tent as we sit to meditate. I wonder how many Goenkaji audios these mountains have listened to.
Wrapped up in dry sleeping bags, our tent tucked away in a little clearing in the dense rainforest, our eyes close on a day that made us feel very small… and very in awe. My mind’s eye zooms up and out of our camp spot in Milford Sound.. As my perspective travels higher and higher out of Aotearoa NZ and the waters that surround her, beyond the earth and into space… the awe, magic, randomness and perfect chaos of it all overwhelms me and I feel myself dissolving into formless tingles perfectly suspended in the magic spider web of the cosmos. It’s impossible to mentally comprehend this existence… but spaces like these really make you feel it. And the feeling… the wonder… the gratitude… the connection… the give and take… the balance… is what we are here to remember.
Next up for the fiord hunters: Norway… stay tuned.
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