words from the world

It's soon in the small pier of Te Anau Downs, little life troubles the place. A boat tied to the wooden wharf waits for the group of the day who goes to begin the Milford Sound track. Only 40 people daily start and we must book between 2 and 6 months before to be in the group. Fortunately my brother Christophe thought about it.
After half an hour on the lake, we get off the boat at Glade Wharf. A mere wooden pontoon. Each one of us dip his shoes into a chlorine liquid in order not to soil the earth of the park. The main threat is called Didymo, an out-of-control seaweed that invades lakes and rivers bed and stifle every kind of life. A picture in front of the entrance sign and we start this first day of trekking, a one-hour-and-a-half short stage. We slowly slide in this gree heaven. Swingbridge, walk in forest, river and stagnant waters. There's a good smell of undergowth's humus, a heavy moss carpets branches and trunks. No more things needed to open our hikers' appetite.
We arrive at the first hut, the Clinton Hut, where we make the group's acquaintance. A heterogeneous and international group.
Waiting impatiently for tomorrow.









7h, the dorm wakes up. We pull on a pair of trousers, we buckle up the backpack to start again, to go and get lost in the emerald maze. The omnipresent moss clings to the rocks and to the earth, hangs from the upper branches of the scrubs. A green corridor breaks through the lush forest as a triumphant welcome to a small colony of lucky people. On the river banks, knotty vegetation-incrusted trunks draw a multicoloured jigsaw. The most beautiful city, monuments of the human genius, will never scratch the eternal beauty of the nature. Rotorua was a world of sulphur, arsenic and volcanic activity, Milford Sound Track is a world of harmony, greenery, land of expression for the nature which dresses up for our flying visit. Within this chromatic kaleidoscope, we are only a few free electrons revolving around the twists and turns of a place where fauna and flora live in symbiosis.
Second relaxing night at the Mintaro Hut.























3rd day - we leave the corridor drilled through the impenetrable undergrowth to reach the top of a hill. The green carpet suddenly falls down to a desolate scenery, a rocky wave sprinkled with snowy patches. A dark and shiny patchwork streaked by a zigzag path. The effort is rewarded at the Mackinnon Pass. An emerald valley is behind us and another one reveals itself downstream. The mountain parrots, the Keas are there. They savour the strips of our backpacks and learn how to open them in order to nose around, looking for food. The cold lashes and dashes us up to start the descent. Flat and slippery stones, gleamed by a thin layer of spring water, strew the course. As for the first valley, the transition is brutal and the moss-wrapped knotty branches draw a triumphant entrance. We walk along a stream which chose the waterfall as means of expression. A leitmotiv that fascinates us. In our heads, musical notes resonate and and drive us intoxicated. The "water" element establishes itself in this section and blossoms into the powerful Sutherland waterfall that gushes down from the 580-meter-overhead cliff. A bath of sprays. A shower of visual and ringing feelings.
A last hour of walking to reach the Dumpling Hut. Last night on this magical path a poetess of the early century described as the finest trek in the world. And the qualifier never became tarnished.


















Last day of trekking after a short night. The bodies are tired for some of us. And the walls of the dorm trembled due to the snores of the most agitated sleepers.
Backpack on the shoulders, our eyes keep on analysing the colours, our nostrils examine the olfactory surroundings and our ears make the vigilance pay attention to the slightest branch creaking. Each new step gets us nearer to the Sandfly Point. Bye-bye pristine waterfalls, twisted shrubs, silky mosses and smooth path.
Because there are terrestrial heavens which can only be visited on foot. Because there are still chunks of lands where the trees grow up without fearing the axe. Some droplets, a few chips of wood, a little bit of moss and Mother Earth will make you a fabulous garden.















In the beginning of the afternoon, we hop on a boat that moves us away from the path to lead us to the Milford Sound village. The wharves come out into a large hall like a Parisian train station. We meet again the flocks of tourists who come here to enjoy the ladscapes of the Milford Sound. We follow them and sit down on board in one of the big boats which lean against the quays. The cruise makes us discover the mouth of the fjord. A myriad of narrow waterfalls flow down the cliffs. Immense jagged-outlined cliffs. On the banks, we look for the crested penguins, a kind of rastafarian penguins with yellow and long eyebrows which gesticulate on the rocks after a fishing session into the waters of the fjord.
This cruise finishes an unforgetable time of our New Zealand adventure. A heap of photos, a mixture of feelings, a set of bewildering landscapes and such a few words to describe them...