It was a bit cloudy when we got up, but the forecast was for it to clear up but then return later in the day but with no threat of rain, and that's the way it turned out.

Another big breakfast, I will be back on porridge for breakfast and salads for dinner when we get home! We had a good chat with some of the other guests over breakfast, interesting to hear the different routes people take to basically see the same things.

We had nothing booked for today, it was the place that originally it was planned that we take a short boat journey and then venture into caves that house glow worms, they being the maggot phase of the fungus gnat. But Fiona didn't fancy the caves so that was off the agenda.

So it was a walk, there were plenty of options open to us but we chose one that was just under 8 miles but mostly flat and mostly easy walking and with toilets en route. Firstly we went into town to the supermarket to buy a sandwich and some fruit for lunch and then we drove to the "control gates" about 5km away, these are a set of gates that control the flow of water into or out of Lake Te Anau. We parked up and set off, the walk is part of the Kepler Track which is a 60km circular trail, why its named after a German mathematician I don't know. There is an annual running race that covers the 60km, current record is 4 hours and 33 minutes, it takes 3-4 days to walk it and there are several camping stations along the way. Our walk today took us to Brod Bay which is one of the camp stations with a toilet, the camp station is basically an open sided big shed, the toilet is a portaloo composting toilet, not suitable for Fiona unfortunately.

The majority of the walk was through forest with the path running about 10 metres in from the lake side, so not much to see really apart from trees, ferns, moss and the odd South Island Robin. There is a conservation programme for these endangered birds so every so often there was a poison bait station to keep the rat, mice and possum population in check. We sat briefly on a log washed up on the shoreline at Brod Bay, I ate my lunch but the sand flies bothered Fiona so she didn't eat hers and we didn't stop long. The round trip walk took us 3.5 hours, Fiona had her lunch back at the car and after that we headed back. We stopped briefly at a bird sanctuary where they are running conservation programmes for Takahē, the 3 we saw today and the 2 in Wellington means we have seen 1/60th of the world's Takahē.

We parked up in the town, bought a couple of bottles of the red stuff as we will need one at least whilst we are on the boat tomorrow night.

We both needed a rest after our walk, all told we walked over 9 miles today. We sat in our room with a glass of wine before heading out for something to eat, the plan had been to walk but the wind had picked up quite a lot so I volunteered to drive. There are a lot of restaurants in the town even though its not that big, they cater for the various lodges and motels alongside the lakeside, many of these look OK, there are a couple of hotels as well and of course a fair number of B&B's. Te Anau and Mount Cook are the only 2 places we have encountered coach loads of Chinese tourists, we have avoided them everywhere else. Te Anau itself is very nice, not a lot to do here unless you like walking or boating but the location is beautifully framed by the lake and the mountains.

We ended up in The Olive Cafe as it was one of the few places I could get a salad, I should have known that the seafood that came with it would be deep fried though.

We ended up back in our room in time for me to see Everton's win on MOTD's Sunday morning programme, the reality of Te Anau as with a lot of small NZ towns is that everything shuts at 21.00 or even earlier if it's quiet so it's virtually impossible to have a late night unless you are in one of the main cities.

Tomorrow we get picked up at lunch time for a transfer to Milford Sound where we have an overnight cruise but the weather forecast is not good so we may not see a lot of the scenic Milford Sound. We then get returned here at noon on Tuesday and then we drive to Wanaka for 2 nights and then onto Franz Josef Glacier for 2 nights, we have heli hiking booked there, then its a drive to Greymouth for the trans alpine train to Christchurch for 2 nights. The train only restarts on March 23rd after being out due to some fires.

We read the news earlier that Chuck Berry had died, that set us to thinking about when we saw him in concert about 30 years ago at the Liverpool Empire, we thought he was old then but I am now the age he was then and thats not old!