We said goodbye to Peter and Gerlinde this morning and started on what is scheduled to be our last NZ adventure. We are hiking the Milford and Routeburn Tracks, two of NZ's "Great Walks." We are with a tour provider called Ultimate Hikes. (we've seen some good tour operator names--our Doubtful Sound trip was with Real Journeys.) they took the 43 hikers in our group, 2 of the guides, and a young staff member who has just arrived from Utrecht, Holland, to Te Anau. We had lunch in Te Anau both yesterday (with P & G) and today. It is 20 km from Manapouri, the port for our Doubtful Sound adventure. This means we have done the Te Anau-Queenstown road once a day for the past 3 days. Today's trip was notable because the driver told us about the area we were seeing and because we were significantly delayed by a huge flock of sheep being moved from one pasture to another via the road. Hundreds of sheep were trotting down the road, scattering on the limited space between the rocky mountain hillside to the left and the sheer drop to the lake on the right. We were glad not to have had that experience the 2 times we drove ourselves on that road. We were sorry P&G weren't there to hear all the interesting bits. For example, yesterday we saw an old-time steam locomotive with old-time cars on a track next to the road. Today we learned it was from the gold-rush days, before the road along the lake to Queenstown was built. Miners would bring their gold by steamer to Kingston at the south end of the lake. It would be carried by steam train from there to Invercargill for processing in Australia.
After lunch the bus took us north along the lakeshore to where we caught a boat (operated by Real Journeys, a huge company) to the beginning of the Milford Track. Te Anau Lake is the largest on the South Island and is really a fjord, so more stunning scenery. This picture shows where the boat lands and what's beyond it.
We walked 1.2 km to our first night's lodging, Glade House. The location is lovely. We didn't get much time to gaze at the scenery. As soon as we dropped our packs in our room (we are in a private room with it's own bathroom, a luxury we won't have on the Routeburn), we had a brief orientation and then divided into groups for an informative and entertaining nature walk with our guides. Back in time for dinner, a session where we introduced ourselves by national group, and an overview of the tomorrow's part ofnthe track. A first on our NZ travels, Americans were the largest group, followed by Australians. There is a couple from Norfolk Island, which considers itself a separate entity from Australia. He is a descendant of the Bounty mutineers who stayed on Pitcairn Island. We have had lots of interesting conversations already and are looking forward to more over the next 3 days.
The generator was turned off at 10 pm so it is really quiet. I'm going to stop here and enjoy the sounds of the bush. Maybe we'll get a clear night at some point and be able to see the stars.
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