Arthur Valley Waterfalls
Fiordland National Park, New Zealand - Day 12
To follow the toughest day of hiking, comes the longest day of hiking. After the panorama landscape of the previous day, the fourth day of our hike was just a walk through the woods. The trail was dotted with more beautiful scenes though, such as Mackay Falls and Bell Rock, Giants Gate Waterfall, and more mossy rain forest. Katie and I had lunch below Giants Gate, siting on some large boulders. It was a wonderful spot, except for the sandflies. These nibbling little bugs are the worst. Near water they will swarm around and bite you, leaving insanely itchy blisters. Literally the worst thing about New Zealand (as far as I can tell, also the only negative thing in New Zealand). Katie and I got to chat a bit with our fourth and final guide, Brydie. She is also a native Kiwi, and is saving up to live in France for six months. We laughed down the trail as Katie and Brydie's humor was pretty similar. The trail runs thirteen miles to Sandfly Point, where we would board a small boat and head across Milford Sound to our last lodge. Milford Sound is actually incorrectly named as a sound is created by water erosion, but a fiord (spelled fjord outside of New Zealand) is created from glacial activity. Either way, the name stuck after the discovery that it is actually a fiord. Once at the lodge, we joined John and his family for dinner. Turned out they lived in Sydney for a bit and we spent the evening talking about all the things we could do when Katie and I got there.
