Fiordland

Murphy Family

Returning to Fiordland is like returning home. We arrive at Glacial Rocks B & B in the late afternoon sunshine. We’ve stayed here before so find it quite easily. The two cozy self-catering farm cottages have a beautiful view over a sunken paddock carved out by the glaciers in ancient times. Finn and Sarah Murphy and their three children ages twelve, ten and eight share this space with a cow, chooks (chickens to us), sheep, pet lambs, four horses and herds of red deer scattered in different paddocks.

Olivia, the oldest daughter, is very artistic and her work adorns the cottage. There is an essay she’s written and a beautiful welcome sign inside. Included in our tariff is fresh milk with the cream on top straight from the cow, fresh eggs from the chooks, home preserved peaches and the other usual breakfast amenities. Since our last visit Finn and Sarah have bought a pizza restaurant in town where they all work in the evenings. We agree to eat there one of our four nights, and Sarah promises icy cold lemoncello, an Italian liqueur, on the house.

In March 2010 we had too little free time as we rushed from one tourist activity to the other, boat trips to Milford and Doubtful Sounds, both in the pouring rain, the Gloworm Caves and an unforgettable helicopter ride over Doubtful Sound in the brilliant sunshine, landing at two isolated spots. Rob Hall-Jones, our pilot, made us feel as though we were living Ata Whenua, the beautiful film of Fiordland filmed from helicopters. We took a one hour hike on the Kepler Track on our last day, and we vowed to return to explore the hiking trails. We don’t have a set plan but Peter Tait and Andy Apse both recommended hikes to Key Summit on the Routeburn Track and  the trail to Lake Marian near the Hollyford Track. Both treks require that we drive the Milford Road about three-quarters of the way to Milford Sound. Andy warned us not to attempt these unless the weather is clear. Unfortunately the forecast for the area calls for rain, but I remember that Te Anau enjoys much better weather than Milford so if necessary we’ll stick to the Kepler Track that is nearby.

Shallow Bay

Blanket of Moss

Our first day the weather in Te Anau is fair, we can see lots of cloud in the sound so we take the twelve km. trek to Shallow Bay on Lake Manapouri. We follow a fairly wide level track through ferns, mosses and beech trees and cross wetlands via a boardwalk taking a detour to the lookout. We look through our binos (as they call them here) at some birds in the distance. Lo and behold, we’ve come all this way and what do we see? The good old ubiquitous Canada Geese. How on earth did they find their way down here?

We enjoy our packed lunch on an old log at the shore of this crystal clear lake, check out the backpackers hut – glad we’re day hikers – and head home for dinner and a soft bed.

Abandoned Packs

Alpine Walk

The next day the weather has improved, and we decide to head for Key Summit. If we find it deteriorating, we can stop somewhere closer as there are lots of hikes in the area. It takes about one and one half hours to drive to the Divide where we park our zippy fire engine red rental car and head upward. The trail is a lot easier than we anticipate and very beautiful. This is green stone area, and we hike on a slightly wet green stone trail with small waterfalls punctuating the first few kilometres. Green is my favourite colour, and NZ is the place for me with green stone, abundant green vegetation and emerald green water. The trail divides after one hour, marked by large seriously heavy looking packs temporarily deserted by their owners for the half hour climb following switchbacks to the summit. We meet a group of scouts and their leaders after a few metres, headed back to take up their packs and tramp on the Routeburn. Still the track is easier than we anticipate, and we take the twenty minute self guided nature walk through the alpine meadow, marveling at the fauna that can survive in this often  hostile environment.  We enjoy our ham and cheese sandwiches looking out over Lake Marian in the hanging valley below, a future destination if the weather holds. American Heritage Dictionary defines a hanging valley as “a tributary valley that joins a main valley where the latter has been deepened, usually by glacial erosion, resulting in a steep drop from the floor of the tributary valley to the floor of the main valley.” The clouds are moving in alarmingly fast and the accompanying drop in temperature necessitates bundling up in hats, and gloves. Ironically going down seems to take longer than anticipated though it’s not too taxing. I conk out in the car on the way home and am grateful Duncan doesn’t mind driving all the way back to Te Anau.

Lunch on Key Summit

Claudia Feeding the Lambs

After nice hot showers and feeding the lambs, our  twice a day little contribution on the farm twice, we go into town to enjoy cold beer, pizza, tiramisu, cappuccinos and the promised lemoncellos. Fantastic! We’d signed up to go stargazing with a local but it’s too cloudy so we retire to our little farm cottage for much needed rest.

Milford on a Sunny Day

Searching for those orange markers

The following day the weather is brilliant; we can see all the way down toward Milford Sound so we decide to drive there for a look. Because the rain was tipping down on our last trip, we anticipate a very different view and we’re not disappointed. Though it’s 120 km down, it takes two hours because of the winding roads and slow tour buses and campers. At this time of year, New Zealanders have not begun their summer holidays yet, the traffic is light, and I enjoy driving part way.  There are so many curves in the road to attend to the time goes very quickly. Duncan takes the wheel for the drive through the Homer Tunnel, down the steepest stretches of road, and we arrive at our destination around noon. We enjoy a snack and a flat white before walking to the lookout and the foreshore. Then it’s back into the car to the start of the Lake Marian trek. Marian Falls, actually a series of thundering falls, is our first reward. This part of the walk takes only ten minutes and is where most tourists stop and turn back.  There is a reason for that! We head up the trail and don’t see a single soul until much later. This is a difficult steadily upward climb over rocks and tree roots following the orange markers across four avalanche sites. At the first there is an ominous sign warning trampers not to stop for the next 200 metres. We pick our way slowly through the massive downed trees and gigantic boulders stopping periodically to find those welcome orange markers. I shudder to think what sound and fury there was when the tons of debris came thundering down the mountainside. We had hoped to eat lunch at the lake but because of flagging energy, we sit on a rock and devour one of our sandwiches and some nuts and dried fruit before proceeding.  We keep going and after much grunting and groaning gain our reward. We are in a huge alpine amphitheatre surrounded by snowy peaks with a small clear emerald lake in the middle.  The sun is blazing away and we find a large flat rock that serves nicely as our picnic table where we finish our sandwiches and munch on apples and nuts. We wish we had brought more water, but hey, up here the water is as pure as it will ever be anywhere so I clamber over the rocks to reach the lake, where I gratefully remove my boots and socks and soak my tired feet in the icy alpine lake. I also cup my hands to take a most welcome drink. Water never tasted so good. I comment that if we were in Canada I’d be looking around nervously for a big grizzly bear coming to drink just over on that small beach. I’m considering going there for a very brief skinny dip when another couple appears from the other side of the lake. Where did they come from? I guess I’ll have to be content with dunking my feet. We spend half an hour before very reluctantly heading back down the track. 

Gorgeous Lake Marian

We meet three or four other groups heading in to the lake. It stays light until about 9 p.m. so NZ trampers make the most of the daylight hours. We’d thought going down this steep trail would be more difficult than it is, and we arrive at the car at 5:30 p.m.

We opt for pizza again, and Sarah and Olivia tell us of their experiences on this trail. Sarah relates that she gave up half way because she was six months pregnant when she attempted it! These Kiwis! This was certainly one of our most challenging hikes, and I can’t even imagine how a heavily pregnant woman could contemplate clambering over tree roots and up boulders. We now understand the definition of that “hanging valley”! Olivia remembers trekking in winter when the lake was frozen over. “Bad luck if you fall in,” was her comment! We’re not sure if she did or not.

After the Pizzeria da’Toni we check with our local “Live Sky” guide who has agreed to do the tour because the sky is perfectly clear this evening. We must kill an hour so walk around the town observing some local teen boys making noise while looking for action.  Teen boys speak the same language all over the world, even in NZ, the only difference here is that many of them actually smile and greet you here. There isn’t much action for them in Te Anau though, they comment about looking for The Hobbit crew that is in town filming at the moment.  They are too young for the lakeside Moose Bar and Restaurant where the group Live Wire is belting out tunes from the sixties like “Honkytonk Woman” and “Rolling on the River”. Why do these young people seem to always play songs of our generation, I can’t help but wonder. We’re grateful we’re not staying in one of the lakeside motels as the music throbs well into the wee hours.

Our guide, Richard, is a young fellow in his twenties or early thirties, who arrives as scheduled to pick us up in his van with a little trailer attached at the back to carry his portable telescope. There is a couple from Liverpool, UK  already in the van, we pick up three young NZ fellows and stop at the youth hostel for three young Canadian women from Huntsville, Ontario, (if you can believe it) who follow us in their car.  So Richard comments that the group is heavy on Canadians this evening, “But that’s OK!” he says. When we arrive at the park we greet each other in the dark unable to see more than rather ghostly outlines of each other. We’d never be able to identify the Canadian women if we met them again on home ground. Perhaps we’d recognize their voices.

Like all these New Zealand guides, Richard is bursting with enthusiasm and information about his subject. I know virtually nothing about the night sky. My knowledge is limited to the Big and Little Dippers at home, and they don’t appear in the southern hemisphere. I can still find Orion’s belt and with a little help the Southern Cross from our Kiwi Spotting night, though. We each get a pair of good quality “binos” (binoculars) and a souvenir map on the stars in a handy dandy plastic case. We dutifully take turns looking through the larger telescope to see Jupiter, a nebula, defined as clouds of gas and dust in which new stars are forming, Pleiades (the Seven Sisters) – if you know the emblem of a Subaru, that’s what it looks like, and we used to own one of those – and a globular cluster defined as “a tightly packed self-gravitating and spherical grouping of hundreds of thousands to millions of generally very old stars”, to name a few of the astronomical wonders. We heard some of the Maori legends related to the heavens and that the constellations are NOT upside down in the southern hemisphere as inhabitants  of the northern hemisphere frequently claim.  By midnight we’re all beginning to feel the cold and damp and are grateful to clamber back into the van for the short drive back to Te Anau. Richard was highly entertaining with his liberal use of colloquial expressions like “done and dusted”, “binos”, “sweet as” and “good on you”. Ironically when we arrive back home after midnight the night sky is even more brilliant at our cottage. Next morning we suggest to Sarah that she hire Richard to come to their farm to put on the show for family and friends because the sky is even more impressive out away from Te Anau. She and Finn recommended the tour and were curious to hear of our experience.

Unfortunately our time at this rural southern paradise is over all too quickly, and I suggest to Sarah that she and Finn hire us as “Woofers” during the next tourist season to help around the farm and in the restaurant just like the young people do. She has two girls currently, one from Rome and another from the States. Duncan can help Finn sort out his books for the local accountants, and I can cook, clean and feed the lambs.  Neither one of us had a Gap Year when we were younger, “How hard can it be?”
Click below to see map:
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