To REACH Lake Te Anau 25 years ago, one travelled through miles of bracken fern - grey in colour and harsh in appearance. The surrounding hills seemed inhospitable - and towering above them the erosion-scarred mountains seemed both forbidding in appearance and majestic in size. One experienced a feeling of remoteness, of insignificance, and above all a realization that, when compared with the forces of nature, man was a rather puny creature.
