Wednesday 23 March 2016

Wet Milford, Sunny, Weka.

Grey drizzly start having poured all night. Really thought we'd be sitting at Clinton Hut all day, but the warden sent us off at 8.30ish with all sorts of safety instructions. The rain miraculously fizzled out by about 10, beautiful mossy rainforest, mountains starting to close in on either side and a million (possibly slight exaggeration) waterfalls. The main river, Clinton, in dramatically full flood, not one for swimming in, possibly rafting, but the side stream we'd been warned about had nearly emptied by the time we got to it.
The birds seem totally oblivious to the rain, I suppose you have to ignore it if you live somewhere with rain two days out of three, and 130mm in a night as a normal thing. A curious tui came to watch us having lunch, maybe attracted by the sandflies lunching on us. We saw a few Weka sniffling in the bushes, one swimming across a stream.
Rain again from 2ish, plans for tomorrow uncertain as we have a boat trip up Doubtful Sound the day after we finish, so can't afford to sit for a day waiting for the rivers to subside, and may have to backtrack.

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