Okarito Trig Walk

Since we couldn't do the longer Alex Knob trek at Franz Joseph, we pieced together an afternoon of hiking, between the glacier walk and this next nearby trek: the Okarito Trig Walk.

Okarito is home to a tidal estuary, a former gold mining town. The Trig Walk starts by a brief jaunt through Okarito's wetland (see above):

Then into some hilly rainforest bits... gorgeous plants:

Rainforest-y:

And when we reached the top, lovely, albeit a bit grey, views of the ocean, the lagoon and the mountains:

The clouds even parted for a second:

My close-up skillz are improving, no?

On our way back down from the view point, we ran into a couple of super cool looking birds that were flitting around like they were hopped up on Mountain Dew. And thus difficult to capture on camera. I don't know if you can see, but smack in the middle of the image is the white and black fan of the fantail bird... these mofos are crazy and factor into one of our misadventures later in the trip. Remember them.

Fiordland: Gertrude Valley Hike

In the afernoon, after our Milford Sound cruise, we decided to do a quick hike into nearby (just on the other side of the tunnel) Gertrude Valley before setting up camp for the night (i.e. parking the van).  When we started our hike, it was grey but not rainy:

As we hiked, however, the clouds started rolling in and literally surrounding us... here they come:

Even my phone started getting fogged from all the moisture, making selfies difficult (god forbid):

Gertrude Valley is a pretty hike... we intended to make it up the saddle for some purportedly lovely views, but the rain and clouds put a damper on those plans:

The clouds were out to get us:

Aren't the clouds crazy? So low-hanging... It was super neat to see how they filled up the valley so quickly.  

Less super neat: how soaked we got and how unable we were to dry out afterwards in the camper van.  It poured all night!!  The rain stopped us from doing another hike on our agenda the following morning, the Key Summit Track.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.  At least we got to have a fresh and tasty pie back at Miles Better Pies in Te Anau (thanks for the tip, Colleen and Scuba Steve!).

Gah, where did we park the van??

Dramatic clouds... that pretty much sums up our fiordland experience!

Fiordland: Kepler Track

After our Queenstown adventures, we drove further south and west toward Fiordland.  Fiordland is, as its name suggests, rife with fiords (or fjords, if you're Scandanavian), long, steep-sided, U-shaped valleys carved out by glaciers.  Many of the fiords in Fiordland are either very deep lakes or seawater-filled "sounds."  Fiordland is also know for its temperate rainforest, snow-capped mountains and more waterfalls than you can imagine in one place.  It's some pretty dramatic scenery, as you'll see from my next few posts.

 

Our first stop in Fiordland is right outside of the gateway town, Te Anau.  The title of this post is a bit deceptive: we didn't do the entire Kepler Track... that would take several days. The Kepler Track is one of NZ's Great Walks, a series of beautiful hiking/trekking paths throughout the country.  We just did the first portion of the Kepler Track, from the trail head/car park out to Brod Bay, a pretty forest hike skirting around the shores of Lake Te Anau.

Lots and lots and lots of ferns (there's a reason why the fern is New Zealand's icon!):

Also: literally everything was covered in a layer of thick, spongy, bright green moss:

Lake Te Anau:

Don't eat the berries:

Creepy but cool-looking mushroom/fungus:

More ferns:

Light through yonder trees breaks:

After our hike was up, we kept driving further into Fiordlands National Park to find a campsite for the night.  The camping in the park is pretty much limited to basic DOC campsites, and we found a lovely one, Henry Creek.  So pretty!  It's right on Lake Te Anau:

We parked our chairs right on the beach (using the trees as a bit of a wind break- it was quite windy that night!), drank some wine, and when it got dark enough, lay on the beach to check out the stars.  The stars were absolutely amazing... it helps that while in Fiordland, you are pretty much in the middle of nowhere, near absolutely minimal artificial light.

The wind was calmer in the morning, so the lake was much glassier:

Also, for those curious, here's a view of the inside of our camper van, with the bed folded up (you lay boards between the two bench seats and spread the cushions out to make the bed) and the dining table out and set for dinner.  We had salmon that night (we bought pre-marinated/pre-grilled local salmon steaks at the grocery store so all we had to do was warm them up on the gas stove... worked out perfectly and tasted great!):