Kepler Track

My family was going on a big hike on the Kepler track in the Fiordlands, New Zealand. I rode in a helicopter to get to the starting point. I noticed during takeoff and landing that the helicopter pushed all the plants in a ripple effect. Helicopters are common in the Fiordlands because it has rough terrain. Some reasons helicopters are needed is so they can check invasive species traps, monitor the wildlife, rescue hikers or maintain the cabins and huts.

When in flight, gravity and momentum act upon a helicopter similar to an airplane. The blades push certain amounts of air down making it go up and making it go down but without the blades it can’t go up or down.

At the very top of the summit, it was too high for plants to grow so it was just rocks. Near the top, the plants were grasses, but once you got lower down, it turned into forests with moss and ferns.

The fiordland is full of mosses, trees, mountains, and limestone. I saw mosses and ferns everywhere in Fiordland! The fiordlands have a lot of avalanches that clear land and make it easy for moss and ferns to grow. They have bogs and marshes too.  

During lunch, we met a bird called the Kea, which is green with a grey beak and some blue feathers on its wings and grey feet. The Kea is an alpine parrot. Conservationists and wildlife guides can identify them by tiny ankle bracelets that go around their legs so that they know which bird is which. The Kea we saw jumped away from us at first, but then it started to go towards us. It went over to where we had our food and stole an apple. We didn’t see that bird for the rest of the day. Kea’s are clever, keen, friendly, and curious. Our guide, Helen, was a conservationist who handfed endangered chicks and then released the grownups back into the wild to breed. 

The fiordlands were created by volcanic activity, tectonic plate activity, and glaciers. I saw where rock slides had occurred making a slanted path. It was very dangerous and you had to be careful not to start another rock slide that could kill you.

The Kepler Track was named after Johannes Kepler. He discovered that the planets orbit around the sun with an oval shaped orbit and he was the first person to explain how human’s see.