A Short Hike

Yesterday was my last day in Fiordland. :(
I went for a hike!  :)

The road into Fiordland park

An hour and a half's drive into Fiordland National Park brought me to The Divide, the mouth of one of the Routeburn Track. The Routeburn is one of New Zealand's "great walks" - well travelled, multi-day walks with Department of Conservation maintained huts scattered along the length (bookings required, usually filling up several months before the travel date, so don't bother checking the weather :p ).

A little ways along the Routeburn Track a side trail branches off up to Key Summit. The trail eventually rises above the tree line, ending up in a different kind of alpine meadow than I'm used to! Most of this mountain range is composed of exposed rock with little soil, thus not much by way of nutrients. However, moss thrives with the heavy rainfall. Over time layers and layers of moss grow over top of one another, with the bottom ones dying and decaying into peat. The rain forms pools in these moss-bogs.

sundew (maybe, I really should check the name)
The carnivorous flower :)

The meadows and side hills also boast many small shrubs, grasses, orchids, and the sundew flower (I think that's what it was called), which deals with the low nutrient content of the soil by eating bugs. Yep, a pretty white carnivorous plant! :p

The super-strong gusts of wind and lack of large quantities of dirt kept trees pretty small higher up, but the forest gets denser as it nears the valley floor. Most of the trail was beneath a lovely canopy of beech trees, with little waterfalls coming down the mountain side (and the occasional large mud-and-tree slide left over from spring).

From the summit was a lovely view of the surrounding higher peaks, hanging valleys, and glacial moraines.

In the afternoon I headed back to Te Anau and explored the little town. Of interest to some - Lake Te Anau is actually part of a rather large underground hydro-electric power generating facility. (Underground in the literal sense, not the illegal sense). The multi-lake system generates power by allowing water to flow through underground channels from the higher lakes to the lower, with the hydro facility located at the big drop underground.

Current location: The Catlins. I've got a four bed dorm to myself. :p

(also, usually the sand flies leave me alone. But a few got caught in the car with me yesterday and bit my toes, so I had to stop and put on bug spray. To drive. Not to hike, or eat lunch. Just to drive...)