Milford Sound, New Zealand…

I don’t like going on about another woman, but ladies, sometimes we can tell can’t we, when one of us kinda pushes it a tad overmuch?!!

The other day we were visiting Nature at Milford Sound. Ok, yes, I’ll give you that, she does looks striking there! Her look here starts off as a calm almost deceptively casual demeanor, but as you glance further, she reveals how deep and amazingly endless

the look really is. And then there’s that sheer vertical audacity of the cliffs, the valley walls plunging steeply into the blue depths. It’s almost…you know, voluptuous! But somehow, and I don’t know how she does it, despite the special effects here, she has that almost dreamlike quality, seeming at once clearer than reality, yet misty, mesmerizing, just beyond reach!

And the colors! We know how outrageous some colors look together… the big no-no’s! The combinations Nature wears here at Milford Sound – frankly ladies, in my mind I’d have probably instantly rejected the mix. But on her, these very shade contrasts are simply stunning! There’s those rich greens of the forests, you know

the kinds we’d want mellow down…? But she pairs them instead with the most brilliant blues, azure of the skies, deep and dark of the waters, and every half shade across that spectrum! And then to add to the drama, she streaks white veins in the form of waterfalls cascading down, disappearing in a plume of fine spray! Yet on her, instead of it looking like a hideous clash, it all comes together so naturally!

The other day, I heard the staff talking about how long it took her to get this look…on this one, I kid you not, but Nature started getting ready about 400 million years back! The tectonic plates moved, and in a dramatic surge, the mountains towered up from the waters. Then for several years, just like the long minutes when we’re letting the face pack settle, she just let sediment form, and vegetation to thrive. Then during the ice age, just 2 million years ago, she put on the ice pack, and over time slowly let the glaciers run down, forming crevices or fjords. Now girls, if we took that long, I reckon we’d look just as gorgeous!

And then there’s this beautiful story about her jewelry! Legend has it that a Maori captain Tama-ki-te-Rangi was deserted by his three wives, and came looking for them to Piopiotahi, as Milford Sound was called then. He found one of his wives, but she’d been turned into greenstone! As Tama wept heartbroken for her, his tears penetrated the rock. Even now, if you hold up a piece, you can see water drop like marks on greenstone from the area. Aww, shucks, I need a story like that for the fossil imperfections in my Amber inclusion locket… all I can say is it’s an insect trapped in!!

But finally what takes the cake are Nature’s mood swings at Milford Sound. One minute she’s smiling and serene, and

the next, for no apparent reason, she gets all misty eyed, and turns on the waterworks! And she does this so frequently! When I remarked at her unprovoked histrionics, I was met with glowing forgiving smiles… “that’s her beauty, you can never quite predict…” Oh fiddlesticks (as they say in New Zealand)!! Everyone’s just so besotted!!

Well, ok girls, if she has us bested in the beauty, grace and what have you department, we’ll just have to be creative in other ways!!