We planned to go on Lake Marian hike that day, but we realized it was on the same route as that of Milford Sound and we didn’t want to drive the same route again. If we would have checked it before, we could have completed the hike on the same day as Milford Sound. Since we had been to one side of Fiordland National Park, we wanted to explore the other side hiking a small part of the famous Kepler track.

Our friends recommended taking a two hour Glow worm cave tour (98 NZD per person) as well, so we decided to go to the cave first in the morning and then head to Kepler track. We had to catch a boat across Te Anau Lake to reach the Glow worm caves and the ferry point was very close to our stay.

A rainbow across the lake welcomed us today 🙂

The boat looked very similar to the Milford Sound one, but with a smaller capacity. The seats were inside the boat and deck above was left empty.

After a few minutes into our journey, we stepped outside the cabin to reach the deck to realize that it was a speed boat and the winds hit us at very high pace on the deck. We had to hold on to the rods to remain stable.

As the boat progressed, we realized how vast and deep the lake was and again I felt like calling it a river rather than a lake.

We reached the other end of the lake, where the caves were located. We were divided into four small groups and accompanied by a guide into the caves. No photographs were allowed in the caves as it has to be in complete darkness and they don’t want us to disturb the glow worms 🙂

Initially, we walked past the lime stone caves, which were very young. Later our guide took us in a small kayak boat in the water, located in the darker part of the cave. We maintained absolute silence and watched the glow worms glowing green in darkness. It was a fantastic experience watching so many glow worms at a time 🙂 At the end of our cave tour, the brain felt very calm as if we just meditated.

One more rainbow for the day 🙂

We took our boat back and returned to Te Anau ferry junction, from where we headed to the Kepler track after lunch. The Kepler Track is a 60 km circular tramping track which passes through many landscapes of the Fiordland National Park such as rocky mountain ridges, tall mossy forests, lake shores, deep gorges, rare wetlands and rivers.

It takes around 3-4 days to complete the track normally. There is an annual running race on this track called Kepler Challenge that traverses the whole 60 kilometers, which the winners complete in less than five hours :O. We wanted to do a part of Kepler track from Rainbow Reach to Moturau Hut, which was around 6kms.

We walked across a deep forest enjoying the bio diversity of the National Park. It was a beautiful nature walk 🙂

We came across wetlands in between where a bridge has been built to continue on the track.

The track is filled with a variety of mushrooms, growing everywhere.

We came back to the Rainbow Ridge to spot our third Rainbow of the day 🙂

On the way back, we stopped at Manapouri lake, where it started raining and we had to head back to our motel immediately.

It was a day completely in nature and it felt very calm and rejuvenating 🙂