Milford Track day 2

16 Feb.
The day started with the generator coming on at 6:30, the signal to get up and moving. After collecting the laundry I had done the night before from the drying room, we made our lunches for the day (the guides told us the motto is "don't be shy, stack 'em high"), we had breakfast and set off on the track. We were the last to leave and about the last to arrive at tonight's lodge. We took our time and Mike took lots of pictures. We started walking thru the semitropical forest along the beautifully clear Clinton River. There is so much rain here that almost everything is covered with moss. There's no topsoil, so trees need the moss to hold moisture during dry periods. While the trees can't grow without the moss, it eventually kills them because it covers them completely. The naturalist on the Doubtful Sound cruise compared it to what would happen to our feet if we wore wet sox for years. Anyway, there arendifferent types and therefore colors and textures of moss. Imagine rocks, trees, dead tree limbs, all covered.

Trees grow right on the rocks, or on whatever they can find. We saw lots of trees with huge roots with open spaces under them. Maybe that's what gave Peter Jackson the idea for the walking trees in The Lord of the Rings.

We saw lots of birds, including the rare blue duck and the Tom tit, not rare but new to me. We also saw large brown and rainbow trout in the river, and even an eel.

The mountains rose around us as we walked down the river valley. Some are bare rock, some covered with green, and some had snow on top. We saw the remnant of the glacier that had formed the valley we walked thru. It was our first really sunny and hot day, so we did get a bit of summer.

Today's hike was about 10 miles with a fairly small rise in elevation. Tomorrow's is longer and the toughest, crossing the McKinnon Pass. Off to sleep early for an hour earlier start tomorrow.