Jan 27, 2026 Kepler Track
A beautiful day led us to a hike on part of the Kepler Track, a multi-day ‘Great Walks of NZ’. This walk took us on a different part of the same route as yesterday, along the Waiau river towards Lake Manapouri, opposite the shore where we are staying in a cabin. We started our walk at Rainbow Reach Bridge, a swingbridge over the Waiau river.
We happened to cross just when the River Jet Boat tour was zooming under the bridge! For a video check out the YouTube channel HERE!
Back into the emerald green forest, with occasional views high above the river towards distant mountains, interesting natural features and another swingbridge! We also found the skull of a stoat, known as the short-tailed weasel or ermine in North America, on top of the trap that probably killed it! The stoat was purposely introduced to NZ to control the rodents that had accidentally been introduced. Unfortunately the weasel found it much easier to prey on the flightless and flying birds of NZ that had no land mammal predators at all and were helpless in the face of this aggressive new threat. There are big wooden traps on almost every trail to trap stoats, ferrets and special traps for the larger possums, introduced for the fur trade in the 1850’s through the early 1900’s. A country wide effort is underway to make make NZ predator free by 2050, an ambitious goal that is highlighted in THIS ARTICLE.
We reached our goal of the Moturau Hut on the shore of Lake Manapouri, where we ate lunch and watched the ‘trampers’, the hikers who were mostly on the last day of their Kepler Track adventure. The smaller ‘hut’ on the left is for the guides (or rangers?). The NZ Walks are so popular that your space in the huts along the routes need to be booked well in advance and ‘free’ camping in the forest is not allowed! Cooking facilities, ‘long drop’ toilets and bunks with mattresses are provided, along with a wood stove to heat the hut and lots of firewood! This hut has a fantastic view across the lake, and even a barrel BBQ grill in the beach!