The Mushroom Farm

To us, coming from an arid climate, New Zealand is an enormous mushroom farm, as evidenced by these shrooms found on the Kepler Track. In reality there are sunny wine-growing areas and Dunedin often has sunny days and moderate rain (intermediate between Seattle and Denver) which is spread fairly evenly across the seasons. But back in the deep cool forests and in all of Fiordland and the West Coast, moss hangs from the trees, water courses freely and clear, and shrooms sprout all over. The Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers grind on down from the hinterland, almost reaching the ocean. It's quite bizarre, for me at least, to be in a cool, coastal rainforest and around the corner is an enormous glacier. Fiordland is one of the wettest places on the planet. The mountains rise majestically above the fiords but it can be nasty-nasty in the high places. I've discovered that there is colorful and descriptive language for rain that we lack in the arid parts. The sequence for rain severity goes something like this: spitting, tipping down, raining, chucking it down, throwing it down, and absolutely THROWING it down!