November 29, 2022

November 29, 2022

Last night when I woke up to use the bathroom, the lights were not working and the room was cold. Fumbling in the dark, I eventually remembered the power was off until 6AM. Electricity is something we all take for granted.

We wake at Glade House on the Milford Track in Fiordland National Park. It is not raining but the weather is overcast. We dress and then head to the dining room for breakfast. We also prepare a sandwich for our trail lunch.

At 8:30AM we all left as a group. It didn’t take long for us to stretch out on the trail. We cross over the wide Clinton River ten at a time on a swinging bridge. These swaying spans make Aimee especially nervous. We follow the river upstream through the forest. Interestingly, the distance markers are all in miles, despite the switch to metric years ago. I guess they kept it for us. I like having these mile markers because it allows us to track our progress. No other trail in New Zealand has these.

Less than an hour into the hike we have a Wetland Walk detour to investigate the plants that live in the many bog sections of the valley floor. I find the carnivorous Pygmy Sundew plant to be the most interesting. Getting nutrients in a landscape that rains constantly is difficult. Almost microscopic this red plant produces dew-like sticky secretions that attract and capture insects delivering much needed nitrogen.

The rain starts soon after we leave and doesn’t let up. But by now we are used to it. We soldier on. After three hours we finally reach a clearing where we can see the cliffs lining the trail. They are covered in thin waterfalls cascading down the nearly sheer cliff faces of this glacier-carved valley. The walk through the rain was so worth it! The rain never lets up but the forest disappears opening up the view. It is magnificent scenery. I have to work very hard though to take photos in the rain. I keep the camera in a plastic bag, trying quickly to snap photos with my free hand protecting the lens. One errant raindrop on the camera lens and all the shots will be blurry.

We stopped at a warming hut for lunch. The hiking company has built these structures along the trail and helicopters-in supplies. It is so nice to get out of our rain gear and have a warm beverage.

During the second half of the hike, we made a brief detour to see Hidden Lake sitting next to the cliff. Apparently a large landslide in the past caused this depression in the valley floor. The rain got heavier but nowhere near its potential. This is one of the world's wettest spots, with rain reaching thirty feet per year, that is more than a foot per month. It can come down so fast that the trail floods, requiring trekking through water above the knee. If the conditions are life-threatening, hikers are routinely helicoptered around the most dangerous spots. We are feeling lucky that the rain is manageable.

There is surprisingly little animal life on the trail, including birds. Like the Galapagos there are no indigenous mammals such as squirrels. New Zealand used to have a wide variety of birds, especially flightless ones. Unfortunately rats that stowed away on Europeans ships are raiding the ground nests of native birds. New Zealand has placed thousands of wooden rat traps all along the trail to help reduce the invasive pest damage. We do hear two bird types; some songbird whistling distinctive calls to each other, and a parrot squawk which we assume to be the Kea, the only mountain Parrot. Unfortunately, try as we might, we can't see anything in the dense jungle canopy.

After ten miles and six hours, we arrived at Pompolona Lodge. These private lodges have drying rooms for our wet clothes and equipment. There are a set of parallel government huts without these ‘glamping’ benefits. We took a hot shower and then put on our dry set of clothes that we packed inside a plastic liner bag. I then put up my feet to rest them. Our room has an even better view than last night. Aimee and I stopped at the bar for a drink before another big supper.