The rainforests of Fiordland are among the wettest places in the world. Milford Sound receives about seven metres of rain a year, although this amount increases sharply further inland as rain-bearing winds from the sea are forced up and over Fiordland’s mountainous interior. At higher altitudes this rainfall usually falls as snow, and over the course of many ice ages the resistant rock of Fiordland has been ground down by hundreds of glaciers to create the spectacular landscape of U-shaped glacial valleys and precipitous cirques that make Fiordland world-famous today.
The Eglinton Valley, draining southward towards Lake Te Anau, is one such glacial valley that has been shaped by many episodes of glaciation, its wide flat floor now allowing relatively easy road access via State Highway 94 into the heart of Fiordland’s majestic mountains. Beech forest dominates the upper parts of this valley, thriving in the cool, wet subalpine environment.
The forest community in this photograph occupies an old river terrace, now stranded high above the present course of the Eglinton River. Consisting of raw river sand and gravel, the terrace would have been a relatively uninviting place for most plants when it was first abandoned by the river, but over the course of hundreds of year a rich forest community has since developed, forming its own soil through the decay of dead trees and branches. The rotting logs in this photograph show this process in action, returning nutrients to the soil in which the next generation of forest trees will take root.
