STILL IN THE RAIN

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It’s still raining & will be a few more days. This is a tropical rain so it pours hard, eases off a little and then pours hard again and is never ending!

Our schedule was alternated slightly so that we drove to Lake Matheson and Fox Glacier this morning instead of tomorrow morning. It was a trip up and over the mountain with hair pin turns and winding roads. There was a sign for a Kiwi crossing which I missed photographing. It’s the first one I have seen. One of our group went for a walk yesterday on one of the trails and snapped a photo of an alpine deer - beautiful picture.

Our driver took us down a little country road through pasture land that had herds of healthy beef cows and lots of local birds such as Takahe, spur winged plover, pukeko, thrush, blackbirds plus lots more that I can’t name.

The trail took us through an untouched and primitive rainforest - trees covered in trailing mosses, everything in spectacular shades of greens; little mosses that look like starbursts and rushing little freshets tumbling down the slopes towards the lake. There are trees in here that are 1,000 years old. Lake Matheson is a small glacier lake which was a traditional food gathering place for local Maori. Normally this lake is a stunning reflective pool for Mount Cook and Mount Tasman. However today, because of the mist and rain drops, there is no reflection of the mountains. There is a tremendous amount of energy generated within these prehistoric rainforests that you can feel swirling around you as you stroll along the path.
After returning to our hotel, we decided to go on the Terrace Walk just on the edge of the village. It was a similar prehistoric type of path but the trees inhere are much bigger. In fact they are so wide they look like several trees grown together. They have to be ancient!

Our dinner tonight was Alice May Restaurant. Alice May was a tragic woman who became pregnant by her lover. When her baby was stillborn the lover left her. But she shot him and tried to shoot herself. She was tried and sent to prison but her case caused a great uproar in her community. After a petition signed by 1,000’s of people was presented to the court, Alice was released from prison after 6 years. She eventually married and had children. Her great granddaughter owns the restaurant.

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