Laundry and Lord of the Rings Country

Friday 28 March

Took advantage of the still and quiet of Manapouri (even the stags stopped roaring eventually) for a lie in (🦁) then spent half the morning doing laundry in the campsite washing machines and pegging it out on the miles of lines (along with the rest of the camp!)

The glorious sunshine lured us out for lunch in our lovely hedged in space - leftovers and pasta (carb loading for the afternoon walk ahead!)

Without even a siesta to set us up, we drove up to Rainbow Reach and crossed the swing bridge to pick up the Kepler Track for a few kilometres through a glorious mossy, ferny southern beech forest.

The sunlight dappling the path and the cushioned mosses was so beautiful. There were signs of autumn all around - fungi of various shapes and colours, a carpeting of fallen deep brown beech leaves and a slight chill in the shade. I loved the dichotomy between the tall slim elegant southern beech trees pointing up to the heavens, and the soft, cuddly ample bosom of the moss covering fallen trees, tree stumps and just the ground in general. Luscious ferns lined the path in various places, and the saplings were often decorated with lametta like strings of lichen. It was like a fairytale forest... in fact, part of Lord of the Rings was filmed up here.

We got buzzed by a few piwakawaka (fantails) in a couple of places - this little fellow below was very persistent for about 5 minutes before he flew off to continue his flittering elsewhere.

We walked for about 3-4kms to a wetland lake with dark tannin waters then turned back to retrace our steps.

As I said, apparently this is Lord of the Rings country and you could definitely imagine hobbits and elves travelling the same paths that we had just walked.

Heading back to Manapouri the clouds over Fiordland were beginning to gather ahead of the forecast rain for the next day or two.

Back at Banjo we had delicious Silver Fern lamb burgers and turned in early as the days begin to shorten and darkness falls fast.