ecause of the lake and the flatlands to the east, Te Anau is popular with a variety of birds. Up to 8000 paradise ducks winter in the Te Anau area and occasionally the chestnut-fronted shelduck, a rare vagrant from Australia. has been seen here too. One pair nested and reared ducklings at Glenmore dams near Lake Tekapo.

The name Te Anau is actually a corruption of the Maori name Te Anau - 'rushing waters in a cave' - but it was not until the 1940s that the caves were rediscovered across the lake from the township, at the base of the Murchison Mountains. It is a half-hour launch trip to get there but it is one well worth doing.

Like the more famous Waitomo Caves in the North Island, the caves have a glow-worm grotto and a glorious array of stalactites and stalagmites. In addition, there is an underwater waterfall. If you have the time and inclination, take a tramp inland to the upper entrance of the cave system. This is enormous - big enough to swallow a jumbo jet. Inside, a labyrinth of tunnels stretch off in all directions and in these a number of noteworthy fossils have been found, including the bones of the Stephen’s Island wren, formerly thought to be confined to that island, and a frog, four times larger than any of those native species existing today.

Te Anau has the air of a frontier town, which perhaps should be expected with the wilderness of Fiordland looming large across the lake. Today the town derives its income from two main sources - tourism and deer. Around the turn of the century four kinds of deer were released - axis deer, moose, wapiti and red deer, with survival rates of nil, poor, moderate and phenomenal respectively. It is estimated that about 600,000 red deer have been killed by both amateur and professional hunters since protection was removed, but they are still in sufficient numbers to cause concern by grazing vegetation and accelerating erosion.