The photos don't all have names, but I have gotten them up:
Set for the day on Flickr
The forecast for my day on the Milford Track was rain, rain, and more rain. When I woke up I could hear the rain on the lodge roof, and outside it was dark and grey. I was still pretty sure that it would be amazingly beautiful, but not too excited about hiking in the rain all day. But I was here, and a little wetness wasn’t going to stop me!
So I put on my many layers (it was also pretty chily to start the day, probably mid-upper 40’s), got my water and sundries packed into my backpack, and left my lodge about 90 minutes before my scheduled meeting time. I had to walk at least a half-mile to get to the meeting point, but even further than that to get downtown to get some breakfast, which I considered a big requirement for a hike day.. I was very thankful for the GoreTex shell I bought back home. It had now served me very well here and in Shanghai against an awful lot of rain!
Start of the day looked like this:
I went to the famous pie place downtown for a meat pie. I chose venison. Hard not to think of Sweeney Todd when eating meat pie, though! Anyway, pie and flat white (like a latte with a little less foam, and what I’ve been drinking through all of Oz and NZ), and I was good to go.
I set back out in the rain, went by the local shop for some extra munchies, water, and bug spray, and then walked back to the meeting point.
I met Hunter, my guide, and an older Japanese couple, Hisai, and Hiroshi, and we got a bit of a tour on the map of where we’d be going. Hunter also outfitted me with a REAL hiking backpack with a rain cover (and I am now totally convinced of the waist belt thing… need to get one of these when I get home!), as well as a slightly longer raincoat. The extra gear was much appreciated!
Once we were on the bus, we had a 20 minute bus ride from downtown Te Anau, which is at the southern end of Te Anau lake, to Te Anau Downs, which is where the boat launches to take people to the Milford Track. It’s one of the most famous and beautiful hiking trails in the world, and it takes people months to get reservations to do the full thing, which is a 4 day hike. But day-trips are easier to come by!
As we were on the bus, we could see a sliver of clearing sky opening up. I was wishing that was a good sign, but wasn’t very hopeful. We got to the ramp and onto the boat with a ton of other people. Many had their big packs for the full trail, and then a group of us were just out for the day. It was me and about 30 Japanese tourists. This will matter more later!
The boat trip was amazing. As we went the hour up the lake, the views were consistently amazing, and that little opening of blue sky seemed to be getting progressively bigger. The boat had a top deck, and even though it was really windy, I had enough layers on that I spent most of my time up there taking photos. A nice guy from Ohio and I were swapping cameras so we each had some pictures of ourselves. The mountains were so pretty with the clouds across the top of them that I was actually thankful it wasn’t a totally clear day!
Some shots from the boat:
An hour boat ride, and we got to the ramp at the top of the lake. The only thing here is the start of the trail, so it’s very quiet to start with. We took our time getting started because Hunter wanted to let the other groups of people get ahead of us. We had our three people plus about a dozen other Japanese tourists and their escort, who effectively acted as translator. Hunter stopped to explain a ton of the plants an animals in the first hour, and I learned all about the three types of beech trees (evergreen, not like american), and some about the orchids and ferns. Also the lance tree, which starts off as really spikey, and then gets shorter and juicy leaves as it gets much older. Evolution in action!
Crown fern:
The whole setting of this part of the walk is rainforest lusciousness. It’s so lush and green, and is just beautiful and overgrown in every direction.
There’s also amazing bird songs from the Tui. I may have got a recording of it, but I’ll have to check the videos I got. Other birds spotted were these cute little fan-tails that are serious acrobats, south island robins that are grey little puffballs, and paradise ducks (the females are more interesting to look at than the males!).
I should also mention that except for a bit of a sprinkle right at the start, the skies basically cleared up of rain. There were still a lot of clouds in the area, but it really seemed like a beam of sunlight was following us for most of the walk. At least it seemed to be shining through the trees, anyway!
We made our way pretty slowly in the first mile, until we reached a beautiful opening, home of the Glade House.
Here we got to take a break and have a wonderful lunch. Once through lunch we were off again, but it had started to rain. “This is it,” I thought, “now we’ll have rain for the rest of the day.” But once again, we went across the rope bridge (yay more rope bridges!) to the other part of the trail and the sun came out. It was truly amazing. I could not believe how much rain was around and how little of it came down while we were on the actual trail!
Rope bridge:
Anyway, after lunch we continued on the beautiful trail for close to another 2 miles. We walked with the Clinton river, which was quite high from all of the rain.
We also got to see more huge beech trees and some white pine, which reminded me of redwoods and the kind of ancient monsters that various areas have, having been around for hundreds of years.
Very old white pine:
With the mosses covering everything, it just added to the beauty as well as the feeling of richness in the atmosphere (okay, that might have been the humidity!). At some point just before reaching the Clinton Hut (the first night’s stay for long-term hikers), we turned around and made our way back to the Glade House. From here we met up with the other day-hike group, which was a Japanese tour group with a Japanese guide. Because Hiroshi was suffering from some limited motion, Hunter stayed with him while the rest of us went on a walk up the mountain a bit, and experienced part of a different track.
This walk was pretty awesome. It was a bit of an elevation climb, but slow and steady up. If I thought the previous parts were lush and covered in moss, I hadn’t seen anything yet! This was like being in a movie like Jurassic Park, where it’s so overgrown that it looks like it’s been lost forever.
The climb was quite tricky with lots of rocks and roots, but it wasn’t too strenuous.
An extra bit of fun was that I was the only gaijin on this Japanese tour, so that’s quite a switch from my previous experiences. But Hisai and the guide both spoke English, and I understood a bit of the Japanese, so it was fine. Mostly we were just walking and ooo-ing, and ahh-ing anyway, so language made no difference at all!
At the top of our walk on this piece, we stoped along a rock-bed next to a raging river, or a series of mini-waterfalls, depending on how you look at it. There were gorgous mountains beyond the Glade, which we were overlooking, and also amazing mountains at the top where the water was coming from. So more beautiful views in every direction!
After a break (and tasty Japanese treats) we started our way back down via a very rocky path. It was quicker getting down and by the rocky bit it was far less lush. Still gorgeous, but it wasn’t until we got back down to the lake level where it got rainforest-like again. And there we met up with Hunter and Hiroshi, and the whole group made it back to the beginning spot. Like the rest of my tours, Flat Stanley had become quite the conversation piece. He's in other people's pictures, not just mine! And here's me, Flat Stanley, and our guide, Hunter (who really is a hunter!):
The shore next to the boat was also still amazingly beautiful and I snapped this cool shot (go new little Kodak camera!):
At this point it starts to calm way down, with everyone tired. But I spent a lot of time on top of the boat again, and once again marveled at the weather. In one direction it was blue and sunny. But if I turned around, the mountains were covered in clouds and it was obviously raining. Crazy!
These were taken within 90 seconds of each other (probably more like 30!) just in different directions on the boat:
I really couldn’t believe how fast the day went. We left on the bus around 10am and were getting back to town around 6:30pm, but it felt like the blink of an eye. It was such an amazing experience and so beautiful, and I felt incredibly lucky and fortunate that the weather turned out to be so pleasant. This was especially true a bit later because soon after I returned to my hotel room, the skies opened up and it poured all night!
Meanwhile, since then, I've gotten a decent sleep and made it to Queenstown, adrenaline capital of the world! Except I'm tuckered out, so not feeling so full of adventure. I think I'll have a chill evening and see what adventures await me after a good night's sleep!
All in all, besides having an amazing experience and enjoying the day, I also was thinking about how much of this kind of hiking and learning about plants and animals we can do in the States. It’s amazing to be here, and I’ll treasure it always, but I feel even more inspired to do similar things in New England and across the states. There’s certainly a lot less airplane time involved! But I do hope to get back here for a longer trip at some point. It’s such a wonderful place, and well worth the effort to get here.
