After escaping the marauding sandflies at Milford we headed back at a leisurely pace through the tunnel in the Humbolt Mountains which used to cut Milford off from the rest of the world - quite an amazing piece of kiwi engineering as so many of the roads are.
They use a traffic light system so that the tunnel is only one way at a time.
Just on the other side of this range we stopped just outside the avalanche zone and walked into Gertrude Saddle. Again over the top with stunning views added to by the fairly frequent roars of avalanches both on our side of the mountain and on the far side - we even saw a couple as they happened! - it is Spring time here!
An added joy was seeing a couple of wild Chamis goats frolicking in the snow line - lovely to see as there is really not very much wildlife to see in this awesome country.
That night we 'freedom' camped for the first time on an amazing river plain. This is were we slept soundly for 12 hours - the fresh air must be of a different strength down here!
Malcolm as self appointed Jucy cook seemed to pick up a following of birds every place we stopped. At Milford it was Cheeky Keas, here it was a delicate South Island Robin and later in Glen Orchy it was Cheeky Charlie Chaffinches"
Smooth dance moves!
Raiding party.......after me lads.....
He's behind you.......
To escape both the sandflies and the Keas we booked into a camp site in Te Anau and did a long walk 7 hour up the Kepler Track to the first hut and back. The walk was predominantly (6 hours!) through the lovely but rather monotonous beech forest - only getting above the tree line for just over an hour!
Back at sunset after a long day! - slept well (again!)
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