Blogs from Te Anau, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 4

The first day is a fairly and short easy walk so I have time in the morning to do another big sort out of my stuff. I head to the DOC visitors centre in town to pick my hut tickets and set off from town at 11.40am. I am soon at the control gates – the official start of the trek and I am off, walking the Kepler trail. The walk is in the forest (through beech trees) and fairly flat, every now and again you get great views of the river when the trees clear, and you even get to cross a very ‘movey’ suspension bridge across the river at one point. I see a few people walking out (in the opposite direction to me) finishing the treck and after a while two girls walking ... read more

Planned a lay in, but people in and out of the dorm at 4 and 6am, but it meant I had a nice leisurely morning. I went to the DOC offices for 8.30am, and spent the morning writing and preparing my display material for the YHA. Part of the YHA’s agreement to let me stay here for free whilst I was volunteering on the project was that I would update their notice board on ‘Kids Restore the Kelper’. These things always take longer than you think, and by 2pm I finally left with the laminated display work and everything in hand. After lunch at the hostel and wondering in to town to pick up the cinema tickets etc I took down the old items on the display board. I had a brief stop 4.15 – 5.15pm ... read more

Today is national Children’s day in New Zealand, and to celebrate, Caroline and a team have been planning a ‘Play Date With Nature’ day for the last month or so. The event is totally free and based in the forest where the Kindegarten Nature Discovery mornings are held, with similar activities and more. The event had been advertised all over the South Island of New Zealand and on the radio, so I hope it is a success. I am up early and at the forest for 9am, from the meeting last week, I already know my role is the cubby building activity, so after helping with the main set up, I head off into the forest to my designated spot and start building a cubby. I have literally no idea how to start, and after a ... read more

Again a limited lie in due to people trailing in and out of the dorm, but overall it is a very productive day – getting the blog up to date, emails and doing some more work on some bits which may help the ‘kids restore the kelper’ project I am working on. Chatting to some other people in the hostel whilst working, and one of them (who was English) decided he was going to cook a roast dinner this evening, so a group of us went in on it – something yummy to look forward to later. In the afternoon I headed to DOC (Department of Conservation) here, and picked up the pool car which had been allocated to me. When I got in the car I found it was an automatic – never driven one ... read more

Note: more photos appear at the bottom of this page The Kepler Track (61 kilometres encompasses the best of everything - from the lakeside beech forests and alpine tops, to hearing kiwi at Irisburn Hut. Travelling along mountain tops for 12 kilometres, the Kepler Track is an alpine adventure with stunning panoramas. The walk took us from the shores of Lake Te Anau to spend a night high above the clouds in an alpine tussock land. The track then traverses the ridge lines of the Kepler Mountains, down to beautiful Lake Manapouri, before leading us back through the peaceful beech forest, right back to where we started in Te Anau! M and K were back in NZ to celebrate their engagement and had the great idea of organising a 4 day tramp on one of NZ's ... read more