Kiwis (for those who don’t know yet, that’s how you call the locals here in New Zealand) tend to have the highest, finest, biggest, deepest, fastest, wettest, longest, steepest, … whatsoever. So we were not surprised to read about the Milford Track being described as “the finest walk in the world”. After walking it, we have to admit, this might be true
Let’s start with the beginning of the story in July this year. The Milford Track is one of New Zealand’s “Great Walks” where you have to book your mattress in the huts well in advance for the high season, as only 40 people (i.e. spaces in the huts, camping is not allowed) can walk the track each day and not only Kiwis want to walk it, but also lots of people from nearly everywhere. Especially for the Milford Track you need to make the booking more or less immediately when the booking for the season is opened, this year it was mid of July. Right, we have been at Galapagos Islands that time without internet access of course… So I asked HTM (= “high tech Mum” *smiley smiling*) to do the booking for us. And she really wanted to make sure that we get our hut passes, so she calculated the time difference and went with a glass of red wine (it was already late that day in Germany) to the computer. Unfortunately she was not the only one to do so, the server of the booking system was down / extremely slow due to the high demand and it took her much more than one hour (and more than one glass of wine) to complete the booking. Don’t ask who was sweating more – Mum when doing the booking or we when crossing the Mackinnon Pass
We left most of our things and our car in Te Anau (just had our sleping bags, some light weight, high nutrition food, a cooking set and a second set of cloths) and started the adventure…
Day 1: First day was an easy one, we started in the afternoon, took a boat to reach the start of the track, walked for something about two hours and reached our first hut.
In the hut, we got to know the other 38 people, lots of them from NZ and Aussi land, some others from Germany (of course, you cannot escape them in NZ, they are everywhere), a few from USA, one from Poland etc. A group of five approx. fifty year old, very nice Australian woman did this trip as a kind of group adventure and they carried any kind of food you can imagine (including desserts), and had the fun of their live. Some clever person didn’t know that you have to carry out all your rubbish, so they where not too happy the next days about their glass wine bottle they brought for the first evening…
Day 2: It was a six hours walk along the valley through a beautiful forest, some avalanche areas and wetlands. The forests are really magical, like a fairytale forest (we had to think of “Hänsel and Gretel” and the “Lebkuchen Haus” of the witch – of course this imagination was a really tough one for Hardmän, as his Dad already started baking Christmas cookies far, far away in good old Germany and there was no cookie/muffin supply anywhere close for the next 3 days!!!).
We have to say, we were extremely lucky that we made the whole track with dry feet, not too many trampers (as they call the people doing trekking in NZ) are so privileged… However, one of the reasons, that there was not much water was, that there was still lots of snow on the mountains, including the pass for the next day… (and of course the absence of rain during our time on the track).
It was quite cold in the hut when we arrived and we were exhausted. Clever people might do a quick and very dirty calculating: 16,5 km on this day, that’s nothing (yes, we did more than 20 on another day walk as well). However, it’s a complete different story if you have to carry your equipment + food and have to balance over avalanche fields… After lighting a nice and warm fire in the oven and speed-eating a pot of soup we enjoyed it again and got a nice natural show on the evening…
Day 3: The hardest day of the track, starting with the climb on Mackinnon Pass.
On the pass, we met some really crazy folks… Keas are alpine parrots, VERY cheeky, trying to get hold of anything they can use to play, take away and probably destroy. You have to watch out at the huts that your things don’t get wings. Shoes are interesting – playing with the shoelaces is great fun for those birds. Unfortunately, it might happen that they like your trekking shoe so much that they would take it away… Just imagine to have only one shoe left for 2 further days of hiking… What also happened to another group: Someone put his sleeping bag on the balustrade in the morning… a Kea was coming, picking a hole into it and taking all the down out… shiny cameras might fly away as well, a girl from the group one day ahead of us didn’t pay attention…
You definitely pay attention to crazy Kiwis! It was really cold on the pass, the wind was strong and icy and then there was this kiwi trail runner, almost naked… no further comment…
On the pass, luxury waited for us: A day shelter with gas (!!!), i.e. we could quickly warm some water and have a cup of coffee/tea. Very nice! There was even a toilet with a beautiful view!!
The way down was not on the normal track due to avalanches, so we had to use a mostly dry riverbed. Don’t need to describe, that this descend was a bit more exhausting than a normal track would have been
We finally arrived at the hut for this night…
At night, there was an earthquake, waking me up (Thorsten slept like a stone). It was a strange experience, as if someone was shaking my bunk bed… Well, the earth is shaking daily in NZ and it was not a strong earthquake, but I found it quite special…
Day 4: Just a 18km “walk out of the valley” again through forests and along a river and lake towards the “Sandfly Point” (yes, there where some, but not as bad as the ones in Peru and Bolivia!). It was a nice and easy walk (except some pain in the muscles from the days before), however the landscape was by far not as magical and beautiful as the last two days.
We decided to stay for another day at the Milford Sound to do a cruise the day after, so we stayed in a proper hostel and had a looooooooooooooong hot shower (huts don’t have showers and the water provided is freezing cold…*smiley winking*
No worries, a fire wouldn’t have had a chance, it was pouring the whole night and the next morning when we did our cruise, the rain didn’t stop and we had cascades everywhere we looked.
We were so happy that we experienced the rain but not when we were on the track If you go to New Zealand, make sure you get to walk this track and pray for good weather. It was definitely a highlight on our tour so far!