On top of the world

Waking through the night, the sky through the uncurtained window was foggy every time. At about 3am, I finally realised it was condensation on the glass: when I rubbed it away, the stars were bright and clear. But not as bright and clear as the tors and tarns at the top of the hill in the morning. Beautiful!

Guide Liz told us as we stood at the lookout that it was a Tuatapere schoolteacher who wrote the words to the Carpenters' hit 'Top of the World', and Evan just happened to have the song on his iPad right there. So, cheesy as it may sound, we stood on that peak in the new day and listened to it as the colour flooded into the landscape that was clear and bright all the way around, and it was perfect.

The rest of the day was 20 km of boardwalk, steps, tree roots, birds, moss, ferns and a long long walk along a defunct logging tramline and over three wooden viaducts, one of them the longest in the world. The day was long too, and tiring, but lovely, and finished with fabulous hot-smoked salmon at Port Craig where hopefully tomorrow there'll be dolphins and penguins.