The Pods do the Milford Tramp...Day Three - Part Two - Downhill
This entry was posted on 12/23/2006 11:28 PM and is filed under New Zealand.
Downhill from the top of the world to Quintin Lodge...
After leaving the hut the trail edged its way around
the base of Mt Balloon and then the rest was downhill for 3.5 miles to
Quintin Lodge. It was steep, slow going and seemingly never-ending.
We were grateful to have walking poles which took some of the weight
off of our knees.
We saw magnificent waterfalls everywhere.
The
descent was rocky as we passed towering rock cliffs, glacial streams,
moss covered forest, a cascading waterfall section and our first view
of Sutherland Falls. Although this day was the most challenging, we saw the most fabulous and incredible waterfalls we've ever seen.
We passed through magical forests...
They were filled with ferns like these...
This was one of the riverbeds that we crossed...
We'll never forget the beauty and magnificence of these cascading waterfalls...
The cascading falls were like dessert after our hard work scaling the
pass. There were wooden stairs that descended beside them, and
every 15 steps brought a whole new view of them. This bit of
movie is all of the same waterfall ....
The wonderful thing about doing the tramp was the feeling we had of
being able to go at our own pace. So we were able to stop and
enjoy this amazing part of the trip for quite awhile, just on our
own. Heaven!
And finally we arrived at our evening's resting place at Quintin Lodge...Home Sweet Home...
This
was actuallly the view out of our bedroom window. Each day, the
views from our rooms in the lodges were magnificent. They may not
have been the Sofitel - but the views were beyond 5 star.
