Here's our starting point, after breakfast pies from Miles Pies. We ate pies two nights in a row, too. It was another of those "must do" Te Anau things.
Notice that the parking lot's wet? In Te Anau at this time of year, everything's wet all the time. Do take a good look at that blue sky. It didn't look like that when we got back. More on THAT later.
The Kepler is a loop track that takes three to four days to cover. More camping out for the hale and hearty. Leaving the hotel, one circles the east end of Lake Te Anau, passing their wildlife center before arriving at the start point of the track. At that point, suddenly, you're in the rainforest.
This looks like a Hobbit house, complete with chimney!
This rainforest is very dense, and it's really beautiful. We hiked almost to the top of Mount Luxmore and back.
Here's a great link with more information about the track:
http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/tracks-and-walks/fiordland/eastern-fiordland/kepler-track/track-description/
Once we cleared the track, just past Dock Bay, it started to rain. Actually, it poured. All the way (an hour!) back to the motel. All we could do was put up a hood, duck our heads, and keep going. We were never so wet in our lives. It turns out that waterproof boots are not so waterproof when the water is running down your legs into the boots. But since we were soaked, we ran over to the store for salad and to Miles for pies. We really wanted to go back over and get on the track from the Rainbow Reach side, but the weather didn't cooperate for the next couple of days and our boots hadn't dried out yet. So we proved that we had enough sense to stay in out of the rain.
Next stop: Dunedin
