After hiking Ben Loman, I departed for Te Anau, a small resort city about 200 km southwest of Q.   Like Queenstown, Te Anau sits on a lake and is surrounded by mountains- a beautifut setting- though the weather there is far rainier than Q (it sits on the edge of a temperate rain forest).

So, the next day- not really recovered from the Ben Loman death march- I hiked to the top of Mt. Luxmore, which is part of the well known Keplar Track, one of NZ's 'Great Walks'.  To do it in a day, you take a boat across the lake, which takes about 10 minutes and costs... well too much (I guess having a monopoly helps).  On the boat ride, I struck up a conversation with a young Swiss couple who hailed from the Berner Oberland in Switz.  I ask them where they have been and how long in NZ.  The fellow said they had just come from Tasmania where they had spent 2 weeks after having been in W. Austrailia for about 8 weeks.  He then tells me they will be in NZ for 7 weeks....I just sort of look at him and then he says "Yeah, a bit of a long holiday...'  He then asks me how long I will be in NZ and I tell him '2 weeks'.  I think that pretty much sums up the difference between the Euro and American vacations.

Anyway, I was again blessed with excellent weather- not like Q; there are always some clouds in Te Anau- but really good. The hike starts with 1.5 hours through a Middle Earth looking forest-

 You then emerge into the tussock grass and you have this very pretty and thoroughly enjoyable- i.e. relatively flat- hike with wide open views of the huge lake below and the surrounding mountains.

You then get to the base of the peak (2.5 hours) and then climb to the summit (1.5 hours) on a trail with truly stunning vistas of this wilderness lake surrounded by sheer mountains (looks like a fjiord).  

Really a spectacular scene and hike.  The mountains have to be some of the most rugged, sheer and wild looking that I have ever seen.  The Keplar rivals some of the best hikes I have ever done, even though, with blisters and all, I could barely walk when I stumbled back some 7 hours later to the overpriced boat. 

While these pictures do not do it justice, they don't call it the world's most beautiful country for nothing.