Mavora Lake - Te Anau

Næste sektion gik langs en grusvej, som jeg på forhånd havde bestemt mig for at hitche, da jeg bare gerne ville til Te Anau og slappe ordentligt af og købe mad!

Jeg startede med at gå få kilometer langs grusvejen, inden en bil stoppede og tog mig med hele vejen ud til en større trafikeret vej. Her mødte jeg en vandrer, som jeg havde mødt nogle dage forinden i Greenstone Hut. Vi valgte at hitche sammen ind til Te Anau. Det tog dog noget tid, inden en bil stoppede og tog os med. Vi smed vores tasker på ladet af bilen og fik klemt os ind på forsædet. Vi kørte med en landmand, der snakkede løs i 45 minutter om, hvordan de flytter dyrene rundt på de forskellige marker, og mange andre ting, som jeg ikke forstod så meget af, da hans accent var meget stærk og mumlende.

Da alt var fuldt booket de kommende dage i Te Anau, bookede jeg en teltplads på en af campingpladserne for de kommende dage. Den første overnatning var den hidtil varmeste, jeg har haft på Sydøen, med 16 grader om natten, hvilket blev det stik modsatte to dage senere, hvor nattetemperaturen ramte to grader.

Højdepunktet i Te Anau blev en spontan udflugt til Milford Sound sammen med to andre vandrere, som jeg havde mødt nogle dage forinden. Det var ret fantastisk pludselig at stige på en bus med guidet tur og derefter en bådtur bestående af utallige vandfald! Her fik vi både set delfiner, sæler og den store kea-fugl på tilbagevejen.

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The next section followed a gravel road, which I had already decided to hitch, as I just wanted to get to Te Anau to properly relax and buy food!

I started by walking a few kilometres along the gravel road before a car stopped and took me all the way out to a larger main road. There, I met a hiker I had run into a few days earlier at Greenstone Hut. We decided to hitch together into Te Anau. However, it took a while before a car stopped and picked us up. We threw our backpacks onto the back of the vehicle and squeezed ourselves into the front seat. We were riding with a farmer who talked non-stop for 45 minutes about how they move the animals between different paddocks and many other things that I didn’t understand much of, as his accent was very strong and mumbled.

Since everything was fully booked in Te Anau for the coming days, I booked a tent site at one of the campgrounds for the next few nights. The first night was the warmest I’ve had so far on the South Island, with 16 degrees at night, which turned into the complete opposite two days later, when the night temperature dropped to two degrees.

The highlight of Te Anau was a spontaneous trip to Milford Sound together with two other hikers I had met a few days earlier. It was quite amazing to suddenly board a guided bus tour and then go on a boat trip surrounded by countless waterfalls! We even saw dolphins, seals, and the large kea bird on the way back.Leia mais