The night after our Milford Sound boat ride was spent by Lake Gun, a small lake beside the road leading out of Fiordland. We thought about taking a swim and bathing in the crystal clear lake, but the frigid water would not have suited us, and we decided that a warm blanket would be much better. Man it got cold during the night....
The following day we took our time exiting out of Fiordland, visiting a few little stops along the way out. Mirror Lake was one of those stops. The small lakes on a still day provide a perfect reflection of the mountains in the backdrop. We had a bit of a breeze, so the mirror was a bit tainted, but still awesome.
They cleaver buggers that discovered the natural feature decided to have some fun with the mirror image that the pool makes, check out the small sign just above the water...
We also stopped off for a short 3 hour round trip track that lead to the Key Summit. The track itself is part of the famous Routeburn track that starts near Queenstown and crossed the mountain range to Milford Sound. It is the only strait line path to Milford. There has yet to be a road built that crosses this mountain range. I think it takes 3 days or more to do the full Routeburn track on foot, and the portion we walked on was more than a little bit difficult, so we were happy to keep it to a 3 hour journey.
Key Summit was a surprise to us. We knew nothing about the peak, other than it was supposed to provide beautiful views of the surrounding Fiordland landscape. What surprised us was that the entire top of the mountain was covered in a spongy moss.
It was like a swamp on top of the mountain with small pools of water, and mossy patches all around. The DOC provided nice boardwalks over the marsh so that we would not disturb the fragile ecosystem
As we finished our exploration of one of my favorite places in New Zealand, we snapped one last picture of the grassy valley that leads into the mountains. It was a spectacular view.
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