New Zealand South Island Photo Extravaganza

It's hard to depict the simple and profound awe I felt in the South Island of New Zealand, but here are a few tries... I am posting a randomly-ordered collection of backlogged pictures (North Island collection to follow).

Click on any image to enlarge it, and from there you can scroll through all of them. Or scroll down this page if you want to read the captions.

The very strange beach boulders at Moeraki.

The boulders are spread over the beach and some stick out of the cliffs.

The west coast is VERY wet, and the woodland has a shag carpet of moss and ferns.

In fact ferns, mosses, lichens, clubmosses, spleenworts , liverworts and other strange things abound in quantity.

The South Island has A LOT of sheep. All this land was denuded for livestock grazing by British settlers not that long ago. It's hard not to cry over that.

Sheep stay all night, are there at sunrise, and then stay some more. You can never run out of sheep on the South Island.

Low moon and low tide on Curio Bay. On this early morning I found myself crossing the beach with sealions.

Sunlight through the epiphytes in the temperate rainforest of fiordland.

Mountain lake in Mount Aspiring National Park.

Suspension bridge takes me to the land of fog on the other side.

More rainforest encrustations in the woods.

Water falls everywhere in the fiords.

Mist wafting in the waking sunlight.

Milford Sound panorama. These many-fingered and very deep fiords go right out to the sea.

Measuring mountains.

The Pretty McLean Falls was named after what sounds like a very nice man who was generous to walkers and travellers.

Ooo, the suspension bridge again, looking long, as it was. Kepler track.

Carpets of abundant ferns.

Looking down into 'The Flats' on the Routeburn Track.

Filmy ferns, in the dappled light they enjoy.

Mosses... lichens... ferns...

Lichens drape over the understory.

Here is the sunrise over the control gates where the wtaer runs out of Lake Te Anau.

More sun-spangled epiphytes.

The mountain streams are this clear...

High sun, high lake, high mountains.

More ferns.

More ferns.

More ferns.

Panorama in the fiords.

Lichen-draped trees give window view to distant peak.

Climbing Conical Hill.

Moss, ferns, lichens.

This old wooden lighthouse is at Waipapa.

Views to the Tasman Sea (west coast) from the top of Conical Hill.

Light shafts again over the mountain.

View across The Divide.

Little island in the fiords.

More waterfalls.

Top of the world.

Pre-dawn walk in Mount Aspiring National Park: I'm very lucky with the moon and see keas and rock wrens as well.

High wetland area with much rare flora.

We are some of the last to hike here before the snow proper comes.

Near the col we have sneaky views of what is to come.

The cloud descends as we return through the fiord.

Nugget Point has some pretty crazy weather which nearly blew me away in a literal sense.

Nugget Point lighthouse approach is along a narrow, fenced path.

The up-drafts at the lighthouse are phenomenal.

I look back to where I have come from with trepidation.

The plants are strangely happy.

Tick growth on everything up in the wet zone.

Driving into the waterfall. Milford Sound.

Clear and sunny... we are very lucky with the weather.

Water constantly pours into the fiords down the cliffs.

Cloud licks fiordland hills.

Where dolphins play... BIG dolphins. The Bottlenosed dolphins reach a really large size here due to the cold, our guise told us.

Green moss in a black and white woodland.

Gail in The Portal... what a cool experience in the Steampunk Museum.

Steapunk Museum, Oamaru.

More water falling, and water gathering in the sky as well.

Remote beyond my imagination.

Staggering diversity of epiphytes.

High endimism in the alpine zone: all weird and wonderful plants.

Mirror lakes.

Port Chalmers wood terminal.

Another high-up wet place of great, great beauty.