Today we drove the 24km to te Anau and are staying in the village centre. Late afternoon we went by catamaran across Lake te Anau(the 2nd largest in NZ) to the glow worm caves. What a fantastic experience. The cave is a cavernous wilderness of twisting turning falling gushing water travelling at astonishing speed through tthe rocks and down to the lake. The vegetation outsidethe caves is rainforest and the geology of the caverns reflects the collision of the tectonic plates at high speed and great pressure. Limestine is sandwiched between sandstone in great waves of undulating strata. We had to crouch for about 30metres as we entered the cave, walked about 150m and then boarded a wooden boat for the last deep dark cavern where the glow worms were glowing, They were quite astonishing and very numerous. It was like looking at the milky way but a gistening glowing greeny yellow. We were in the caves for about an hour and the journey across the lake took about 30 minutes at high speed. It was a very windy day with rain on and off, but it added to the excitement ofd our boat journey!

Returned for supper and to catch up on the blog as there is actually wi fi working here...unbelievable for this country!

13.02.11 Routeburn and Key Summit 3hour Walk

Some how we managed to potter about until after coffee when we left to go towards Milford Sound. We stopped at Mirror Lake and then stopped for lunch at Higher Ellington DOC picnic and camping area beside the River Elloington. For the first ime we had to eat inside the van because of the sand fklies. They kept pounding and regrouping at our fly screened door whilst we ate...I sprayed them through the mesh and enjoyed watching their deaths!

The Routeburn walk was in rainforest and it was raining....Key Summit was in the clouds so the view was of clouds! The path is very well kept and the nature trail at Key Summit is well signed with excellent information both pictoral and written about the Geography and flora and fauna of the area. We met the warden of the first hut carefully pruning some of the trees. He said he works 10 hour days 8 days on and 6 days off and is responsible for the track and vegetation in the conservation in a 15 km area around their mountain hut. At least we earnt our supper, my turn to cook so I made use of the cam oven and did lamb chops , caulifower, onions , garlic tomatoes and baked potatoes. We are preparing for our 5 day alpine trek on the Kepler Track starting on Tuesday 16th and finishing on Friday 18th. I don't think we will have any signal on the walk as we have to take a radio beacon thing with us in case the weather draws in and we are lost!!!