~ Milford Track - Day 2

We talked today about pitying everyone who couldn’t see what we did today. And I suppose to some extent I do. I mean – we ran out of words, and not long after we started approaching the limit of our digital cameras’ memories & batter power! One of my family’s favorite quotes is, “more isn’t always better, Linus, sometimes it’s just more.” So we spent the second half of the day trying NOT to take pictures. Trying not to capture EACH new breathtaking view. But really, the people who truly need pity are those who see what we saw today without having anyone to share it with. We experienced today together. And we are also incredibly, amazingly rich in that we have you, back home, interested in what we’re experiencing here and in what we find so much difficulty expressing. So THANK YOU for being here with us in some sense.Today was a fun walk. We think we’ve figured out how to do this. This track is not difficult, and we’re not allowed to go further than a preset distance as a part of how they have configured these walks. So many of the group take off, book it to the next hut, get there about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, and then hang out in the hut for the rest of the day. We have been getting half-way decent start times, but we take our time as we hike throughout the day. So we take time to really enjoy views, to look for birds we can hear and hope to see (in spite of how convinced Tom is that they’ll be hideously ugly when we do see them!), to eat, and (in Ben’s case today!) to swim. We (Ben, Tom, and I – Patrick had some painful weird ear thing happening after getting water in his ears swimming) went on a nature walk last night with the hut ranger from Clinton hut, so we spent a bunch of the day i.d’ing plants & mosses we had learned about from him. He also took us on a little night-hike to see glow worms so we stopped this morning to see what they look like during the day! The rain didn’t settle in till 3 or 4 this afternoon (and it’s pretty much a given for much of this hike, so that’s really good), so I can’t think of a way to improve on the day. Except that I burned the rice. :) We spent the evening playing games with Katie & Angelo from Perth (Australia) and Roger, from Victoria (also Australia). Joerg, who made us nervous because he didn’t get here till 9 or so tonight, also joined our table at the end. They play O Heck! in Australia! Woo hoo! Ben & Tom tied for the win, which is a pretty good accomplishment in that big a group.