tklancer
Milford Sound Evening
Look at this large and on black.
Milford Sound is a peculiar place -- it's stunningly beautiful, but when I went it was so packed with tourists that I couldn't appreciate the landscape. There's only one way in and out of town, and once you get there, there isn't any room to spread out (no hiking trails out of town, for example). I drove, which obviously isn't as eco-friendly as the people coming in on buses, but it enabled me to come early and stay late -- once the buses had all left, and the sightseeing planes and helicopters had landed, and all the tour boats were docked, I could really appreciate the beauty of the landscape.
A side note about the people on buses -- many (though certainly I won't condemn them all) of them seemed to be the worst kind of tourist. I spent an hour wandering around a glacial valley on the way in, and I saw bus after bus pull into the parking area and disgorge a mass of people, who then proceeded to take a picture of themselves with the landscape in the back, and then they all got back on the bus and drove away. Few, if any, of them actually experienced the landscape or interacted with it in any way. I realize buses are on schedules and that you don't have time for an extended stroll, but it seemed to me like Photoshop would've done the job just as well. To me, it seems like they miss the point of travel -- heck, by my definition they're NOT traveling. Travel should be interactive, it should be exploration, it should be discovery and experience. It involves all five senses. This just looked like TV in 3-D. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe they get something out of it that I don't see, but it sure looked to me like they wasted a lot of time and money just to say they had been there.
Anyway, I've gotten slightly off topic... This is Milford Sound, in New Zealand, during an uncharacteristic (I'm told) dry spell of nearly two weeks. That meant that the sky was rather boring, so I used some of the local plants to frame Mitre Peak. I quite like the evening light on the peak, though.
Milford Sound Evening
Look at this large and on black.
Milford Sound is a peculiar place -- it's stunningly beautiful, but when I went it was so packed with tourists that I couldn't appreciate the landscape. There's only one way in and out of town, and once you get there, there isn't any room to spread out (no hiking trails out of town, for example). I drove, which obviously isn't as eco-friendly as the people coming in on buses, but it enabled me to come early and stay late -- once the buses had all left, and the sightseeing planes and helicopters had landed, and all the tour boats were docked, I could really appreciate the beauty of the landscape.
A side note about the people on buses -- many (though certainly I won't condemn them all) of them seemed to be the worst kind of tourist. I spent an hour wandering around a glacial valley on the way in, and I saw bus after bus pull into the parking area and disgorge a mass of people, who then proceeded to take a picture of themselves with the landscape in the back, and then they all got back on the bus and drove away. Few, if any, of them actually experienced the landscape or interacted with it in any way. I realize buses are on schedules and that you don't have time for an extended stroll, but it seemed to me like Photoshop would've done the job just as well. To me, it seems like they miss the point of travel -- heck, by my definition they're NOT traveling. Travel should be interactive, it should be exploration, it should be discovery and experience. It involves all five senses. This just looked like TV in 3-D. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe they get something out of it that I don't see, but it sure looked to me like they wasted a lot of time and money just to say they had been there.
Anyway, I've gotten slightly off topic... This is Milford Sound, in New Zealand, during an uncharacteristic (I'm told) dry spell of nearly two weeks. That meant that the sky was rather boring, so I used some of the local plants to frame Mitre Peak. I quite like the evening light on the peak, though.