A Day Trip to the Alps!

It all started Friday night (that's when we usually plan our weekends), when Kimball and I had run through about 5 different options for the weekend. In the end, it was after 9pm before we were in the car headed for Te Anau (the last stop before Fiordland). We arrived at our Backpackers (youth hostel) around midnight. The moon hadn't risen yet and there were more stars than we had ever seen before so we just had to get the tripod out and run a few 30 second shots. See if you can find the Southern Cross below. We were amazed at how fast the stars move (you can just see them start to smudge in that amount of time). Then the moon came up around 1am and we went to bed.

The Southern Cross is found on the New Zealand flag. We have completely different constellations than the Northern Hemisphere and haven't quite figured most of them out yet. Still it's amazing when you can actually see the stars without the city lights and smog!


The next morning we were supposed to meet a friend (Belinda) to shoot some pictures of the sunrise at 5:30am but needless to say, that never happened. When we met up later we decided to check out Marian Lake. I had been there before with my parents on an average day (cold!) and Kimball hadn't been yet. We did the 45min hike, barely surviving the sandflies, and arrived amazed to find the hottest day we'd ever seen in New Zealand. Of course we took a "few" pictures. I just had to go swimming and jumping off rocks. Surprisingly (for a glacier lake) the water was just perfect.

Wandering around the lake we found more fascinating rocks and even more interesting, a couple areas where the water siphons underground (like water swirling down the drain). This glacier lake has only an underground outlet so the massive rushing river we walked past on the hike up, all has to exit the lake by these little "drains" underground. Impressive!

While we were picnicking, Belinda and I saw a couple of shining cuckoos fly out of the forest. Kimball was bummed to have missed them. He must have had heatstroke he says. =) The Rata trees seemed to be all blooming at once. These iconic native trees never grow very tall (30 ft)  but live quite a long time and only flower once every few years.  

A few hours in the sun and out of food and water we took to the trail back to the car. The swinging bridge just before the carpark had this view of the crystal clear Hollyford River.

















On the way, we pulled off a viewpoint and 5-6 Keas were flying and calling "keeeeaaaa" through the forest.

In Search of Keas

Well it's been a long while since we've blogged anything so we'll catch you up to speed. Wait, that would take forever! Anyway, a couple weekends ago we got a great sunny Sunday so shot over to Mildford Sound hoping to find lots of Keas and get some great photos. Well the Keas found us and they didn't waste any time before trying to tear apart the car. For some reason they love rubber (bits around the doors, windshield wipers, anything rubber, even tennis shoes!)

The Keas were everywhere! Each time a new campervan would pull up they would fly over and land on it looking for food. One lady looked out to see a Kea pulling her trash bag out of the camper. This Kea found a backpack unattended.

 Apparently some Japanese tourists left their window open in their rental car while at a ski field and returned to find a Kea had ripped their car's upholstery to shreds! I'm not sure how they explained that to the rental car agency.

The tourism industry here is very smart (I guess they have to be, that's one of the few industries they have!). To get more customers, they have camper vans in all colors, shapes and sizes. Some, like this one, even get a custom paint job. Others just look like they've been graffittied with funny slogans.

While Kimball was chasing the Keas to get pictures of them flying (and trying not to upset too many tourists while at it), I took off to explore. Just across the road was a massive glacier and underneath it an open tunnel with a stream flowing out. Walking inside just a couple feet felt like a walk-in freezer. Great for a sunny day (when it's hot, it's really hot here...something to do with having little or no ozone layer). 

After wandering around on the glacier, I found a place to sit in a field and enjoy the view. (It reminded me of a picnic in the Alps when I was a kid and the trips to the mountains in Pakistan.) The Fiordlands have a couple of rare flowers only found here (the Mt Cook Buttercup and the Fiordland Daisy) which were blooming nicely. Must be the Keas hadn't discovered them yet! 

After heading back down the glacier to see how Kimball was getting on with the Keas, we both heard a loud rumble and looked up. Right above us was an avalanche of rock and snow coming down the mountain. It looked like a waterfall actually, but it disappeared after a couple of minutes. Pretty spectacular! We were excited we happened to be there to see it.

When I got tired of the Keas (Kimball could never get tired of them!) we drove through the Homer Tunnel (dug by hand ages ago) and down into Milford Sound. On the short drive there, we must have seen 50-80 little waterfalls. Pretty amazing considering no rain for the few days before. Must have been snow-melt. When we arrived the sun was burning down overhead so no good for photos. We had seen it all before but the view never gets old. I'm still amazed by something every time we're there. 

This time it was the Rata, a red flowering tree they call their Christmas tree because it flowers around Christmas time (summer here). There were bright red splotches all over the hills and through the forested cliffs. It is really amazing how a whole forest can grow on nearly vertical rock. It's a whole process of one little lichen collecting soil, the grasses and bigger plants grabbing on, etc etc until you get whole trees coming out of the side of the rock and hanging on for dear life. Every now and then a landslide comes along and uproots all this effort and the whole process starts again (I don't know how long it takes but it must be ages!)

On our way back up to the Homer Tunnel we made a lucky stop by the side of the road at this beautiful waterfall. I was tempted to jump in for a swim but one little toe in the water convinced me otherwise. Besides, Kimball almost couldn't get a picture for all the sandflies in his view. He did finally and tried it with HDR. I like how it turned out.