Tramping in Te Anau

Saturday 10 July 2010

Today, we got up and decided to go crazy tramping (hiking). We were quite successful...going crazy I mean. We went to an i-site (an information centre in New Zealand). It looked like we would end up at some caves. So we started out and were walking leisurely until we came to a wildlife park. It was a park with indigenous birds in cages. We got to see parakeets, kea, pukeko, and a rare bird that was believed to be extinct. There are VERY few out in the wild. They are quite large and blue. One was laying in the grass and one was eating the whole time. It was quite exciting to be able to see them.

We stayed and ate lunch and walked on. It was unbearably cold and the trail had mud at times. We got to a section where the trail split in three directions. We had no idea where to go and ended at a place that said not to touch the plants, because it was sprayed. I was chicken and wanted to go another way. So we started on another path, which ended up being the same path we started on. Then we saw another path across the way. We took it and ended up being in someone's driveway. We saw a hammock and a bench. We sat on the bench a while, then we continued back.

We saw another trail, and decided to take it. It said Ivonside Park. So we walked along and saw a small stair case. We went over it and wandered around. We went up a major hill. At the top was a picnic table and a tree with a rope and a stick at the end of a branch. I went on it and started swinging around a while. It was actually kind of scary, because if the rope snapped, I would be rolling down the hill into oblivion. As I was swinging, a woman was walking up and down this major hill. We went down the hill and ran into her again. It was like she was following us.

We went to the Fiordland Park Visiter Centre and looked around. We looked around town for a bit then returned to the hostel to pack for our next trip.