Unconventional S'mores

When we woke up in Te Anau, the skies were slightly overcast but we decided to go ahead with our morning activity. We hiked a 3 hour section of the famous Kepler Track, from Rainbow Reach to Lake Manapouri. It was a fairly nice walk, not very difficult and it had some nice views. Some of the Lord of the Rings river scenes had been filmed nearby, and any LOTR tidbit is always nice in New Zealand!

At the hut on Lake Manapouri we talked to a few people who'd actually been doing the whole Kepler Track, and it sounded incredible. I would love to do one of NZ's Great Walks. We ate our lunch while being attacked by sandflies (no fun!) and scooted back to Te Anau.

Loving Lake Gunn

We then drove into Fiordland National Park, which is actually huge - Te Anau is right on the edge of it, and it extends much further North and South so that it takes up a good portion of the South West of New Zealand. We set up camp at Lake Gunn, a picturesque campsite about 80km north of Te Anau. There was only one other tent at the site when we arrived, a cute little yellow one. About an hour after our arrival, the tent's owners pulled in to the site ... and it was no other than Kat Brown and her boyfriend Ryan, friends from RKY! I'd known they were in New Zealand, but we weren't expecting to meet up under those circumstances at all, so it was very exciting.

Catching up :)

The campsite kept filling up, and that night we made a campfire and hung out with everyone. We met a bunch of Germans and introduced them to s'mores - but our lack of graham crackers, chocolate or conventional marshmallows meant we had to make due with aeroroot cookies, M&M's, and the not-so-tasty strawberry marshmallows that seem to be the only ones available in NZ. Needless to say, the s'mores were unconventional but still proved to be delicious!