so my mission for ms. rhonwyn, of getting rid of these maori artifact flax baskets hasn't exactly been going so well. not only did i utterly mess up and break the number one rule of NOT opening the baskets (which turns out to overdose you in a mystically charged light show), but i've gotten myself corned in the fiordland, and at moment milford sound. this is kinda a problem because there's only one way in or out of the area. meaning if my pursuers (whom i hadn't yet seen) were to catch up with me here than i'd have a really tough time escaping...
there was good news by noon for me... or so it seemed at the time.having just sailed around the entirety of milford sound, and checked out the underwater observatory, i was on a boat which was going straight back to milford port. meaning i could resume my quest across the country, and more importantly get out of the restricted area of the fiordland...
with one last look at the underwater observatory (the pic above) we were off.
i have to admit i was a little sad i couldn't stick around and enjoy things here more. in fact enjoy them a lot more.
i LOVE the fiordland to pieces (well hopefully not to pieces... otherwise we'd lose all the cool stuff in it!). it would have been nice to just have been able to chill around the place and really explore it... as opposed to my hit and flee strategy of the moment.
the underwater observatory would have been cool as to stick around longer in. due to its being an aquarium into the REAL ocean all sorts of cool things swim by it. dolphins on occasion, sharks, even a leopard seal one week!!!
the weather had cleared in the time i'd been down under the water. suddenly the sound seemed like a whole new place...
not that it still wasn't cool, but in my opinion without that rain their almost never without, the sound (okay again techincally fjord) loses some of its majesty without the clouds, rain, and fog...
alright only a smidgen...
though it definitely lost some of its lost world aura.
the nice weather meant at least it was going to be smooth sailing for the last 15 minutes.
i also realized it still could be the lost world seeing the lush forests and shoreline bathed with oh so nice sunny light...
it was definitely a different place in clear weather. you could REALLY see the mountains and their landscape. it just looked like mountains with some water filling their valleys (even if in this case the valley went down 300m!!!).
than as we passed a cave carved in the side of the mountains i spotted movement. more penguins!!! (granted my camera didn't catch them so well from that far away... the tiny duck shaped white spot in the middle is one of them)
the boats passing them disturbed the penguins into running away. so off into the water they swam. (again my camera didn't catch them so well, but their those tiny rippling things in the center of this photo).
the rest of our return to port was pretty uneventful... get the pun there? "pretty" uneventful. cause it was still so "pretty" hehehehehehe
as we pulled back into harbour i felt a slight sense of relief. i'd finished here in the fiordland. now i could resume my trip, and more important hit the open road where i had some options to evade pursuit.
next i'd have to make my way up through central otago and on through to christchurch.
i was so busy picturing and thinking about this next move i didn't notice the harbour front around me. including one VERY mystic costumer standing right there waiting for me...
snapping me to my senses, from behind me the scariest voice i'd ever heard in my life. "halt kauwheke te kura!!!"
i turned to the weirdest sight i'd ever seen in my life! to be really fair people of the innerweb i've seen a LOT of weird things in my time (as i'm sure you'll agree having seen many of them on my blog!). a MOVING, talking, and i think living maori statue! (very much like the one of tu-te-raki-whanoa i'd seen in the lobby earlier today... though this was clearly a different being than tu-te-raki-whanoa). only this one wasn't carved out of anything, rather was made of greenstone, but flexible rubbery bendable greenstone...
what was really odd no one else seemed to notice it standing right there (just look in the picture their standing their looking off into la la land).
it moved towards me menacingly, and spoke in maori... yet somehow i understood what it said to an extent (i had NO idea how at the time). "so you are now the bearer of the kete o te wananga, kauwheke te kura," i wasn't sure but i think kauwheke te kura was the name it had given me. "are you seriously the best tane could find to be his champion???" it now mocked me.
the thing whatever it was advanced closer drawing up its huge claw like hand/fingers (they didn't really separate into finger, claw, or hand clearly. rather were four pieces of flexy greenstone).
"i am traumador," i feebly stated. i won't lie to you people of the web wide world, i was SO scared. "i have no idea who 'tane' is. i work for the otago museum, and am not able to discuss with you my task at the present time," i tried to sound formal and important, but my terror caused my voice to crack several times throughout those two sentences.
i couldn't help but wonder when this thing was going to ask me if i was a god for some reason...
it craned its head in... either confusion and/or disgust... i myself was taken back for a moment... had i been that effective at being intimidating? "tane insults me by sending a warrior who speaks pākehā?!?" it hissed in revilement... i understood now. i'd spoken to it in english (i don't know maori after all), and pākehā is maori for european... i could understand it, but it might not have understood me...
"who are you?" i asked both out of genuinely wanting to know the answer, and also to see if this thing understood english.
it paused yet again. "how is this i understand you're flithy tongue kauwheke te kura?" it asked puzzled. it looked me head to toe from a distance, almost seeming weary. "ah! you have exposed yourself to the mana of the kete o te wananga. you are tapu now. i shall find it most enjoyable to dispense justice onto you. in answer to your question kauwheke te kura, i am whiro. from this day forward the bringer of your doom!"
with a might roar-like sound whiro, as it called itself, readied to charge...
i panicked... i thought i was going to die... i resorted to a move from the movies... "what is that?!?" i screamed (my current fear helped with the authenticity of the scream i assure you!) pointing out into no where...to my amazement whiro's head and attention shifted to the direction i pointed. i almost passed out in relief, but sure didn't waste a fine opportunity...
with my nice speedy juvenile tyrannosaur frame i ran as fast as i could... which to be honest is pretty fast (though i've never clocked it officially). fortunately for me there was a pathway at the end of dock that led along a flax covered sea wall. within under a minute i'd gotten a good distance from the port (as you can see in the photo) behind relatively good camo cover.
once here i hid behind the flax for good measure...
this was worse than my run in with that ghost a few weeks back!!! in fact this seemed so much more real in comparison... i wonder was that really a ghost in the graveyard?... i put a pin in that tangent for now though. there was a very REAL and scary thing after me... just like ms. rhonwyn had said there'd be!... i had to get out of here alive if i was to worry about the graveyard ghost...
after several minutes it became apparent whiro was not following me... i only had the line of single flax plants to hide behind. if it'd come up the same path i'd have been a sitting duck...
cautiously i raised my head up from behind the flax...
even at this distance i could see whiro stalking the dockside clearly angered by my escape...
so i'd survived my first run in with an "atua"... yet i still had a HUGE problem...
i had to now somehow outrun this thing out of the fiordland. the worst part being this headland i'd run onto didn't connect to the parking lot... i had to head past the port to get back to my car or even just the road!
making that easier whiro realized it'd lost me... for now... and that to catch me it had to hit the same single road out of here i was going to have to take...
so with great fear and anxiousness i crept past the port, and into the parking lot to my car. whiro was no where to be seen.
as i started up the car i gulped a big gulp. whiro was somewhere ahead of me in a very restricted area (i couldn't even sneak out on foot due to the extreme mountains), and i had no choice but to come to him...
the chase was about to start...
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