New Zealand, baby!

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Well, finally, I got to see New-Zealand in all its glory.
Since I've been here, and even before that, I had heard time and time again how wet and rainy New-Zealand is. But for over a month all I saw was barely a couple of hours of moderate rain and drizzles here and there. Even in Fiordland, considered to be one of the wettest places on earth, I barely got a drizzle on the Milford and a just perfect day on the Doubtful. But on the Routeburn this had finally changed.
The morning started a bit wet, but by the time we got to the Routeburn itself this has already developed to full pledged rain, plus wind. This had continued uninterrupted for more than 24 hour so we were continuously soaking wet for the rest of the day and the next day. And with such a weather all your waterproof gear is really mostly for show - everything gets wet, from your unsmellables to your unmentionables.
But there's a reward to all this - all this rain meant water just about everywhere, which transformed the route into something really out of this world.
We saw waterfalls by the dozen coming down from snowy peaks above them, or just disappearing in the clouds. We even walked through waterfalls coming down from above us, down into the valley below. Our path itself transformed into a stream which kept sliding down and reforming from yet another stream from above. We saw alpine lakes surrounded by mountains, feeding mighty rivers. The rain moved sideways in the strong winds, filling the valleys with water. There was water everywhere, and we were right there in the middle. Watching Fiordland in the rain is really an experience of a lifetime.
And what better way to end such an experience than with a return walk through the so pleasant Greenstone valley in a perfect weather that immediately followed the rain. We came back 4 days later, dry and completely fulfilled. The hike to end all hikes.

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Photos

The Greenstone Valley
After the rain