Te Anau to Lumsden

Surprised by a Rimu!

We walked the easy first part of the Kepler Track alongside Lake Te Anau through yet another Beech forest (I think we must be ready to tackle something a bit more diverse!) to Brod Bay where there is a little tent site and loads of attacking sandflies. So we had a very hasty lunch and returned to the carpark at the control gates.

No Poms allowed then?!

 When we came down a few years ago we walked the other end of the Kepler so now we just have the hard middle part to do with all the great views!

Dock Bay Te Anau

Afterwards we settled ourselves at Freds country POP which was just down the road from the carpark and golf course on Golf Course Rd and which already had 2 other buses parked up. Very handy for the next morning (Sunday) when we played on the Te Anau course overlooking the lake - nice course but the fairways were quite dry despite the sprinklers and all the rain they have in Fiordland. A lot of the rain must just go around the mountains.
In the afternoon we popped back into town to watch the Ata Whenua film on Fiordland - 32 minutes of amazing footage taken from a helicopter and with music on surround sound. Then it was a quick walk to the 'Miles Better Pies' shop as we had been told that the pies really are good and we understand that the baker's name actually is Miles Better! It was true about the pies - Len had a Wild Venison one and I chose Lamb and Mint and they were both delicious - packed full with nice tender meat and with light pastry that you hardly noticed. So if you're visiting Te Anau a Miles Better Pie is a must!
Being ready to move on from Te Anau we drove on to another farm POP just outside Mossburn which is a tiny little village where the road turns off to Queenstown.
We parked in front of the haybarn with another 2 buses and had the pleasant sound of rain throughout the night. It continued until about 11.00am by which time we were nearly ready to tee off at the fairly quiet flat Lumsden Course. We enjoyed the round which was made more interesting by having different tee off spots for the 2nd nine holes. It started to rain again on the 17th but we managed to finish just before it got too heavy which was good as wet clubs in the boot are not the best. The other 3 lots of people playing have all gone now and we plan to stay the night although there has been no committee member about yet that we can ask permission from. Not even the tractor man is working today.