Top of MacKinnon Pass from the Milford Track
So out of the three tracks I looked into (Milford, Routeburn, and Kepler tracks), the Milford was definitely the most popular of the three. The cool thing about this track was that most everyone starts from Te Anau Downs and hikes through to the Milford track so it was kind of like hiking in a cohort. You spent 4 days and 3 nights hiking with everyone. Most of the guests were from New Zealand and Australia but we also had a group from South Korea, United States, Czech Republic, Spain, and Israel. I will say the Koreans know how to cook camp food. While the rest of us were eating our rehydrated food, they pulled out potatoes, meat, and beer and cooked up a storm every night.
As I stated the Milford track, starts at Te Anau Downs where you take a boat across the lake to start the hike. Our captain, turned to me at one point and said he hated kayakers. We briefly stopped to look at the cross on the shore where McKinnon was thought to have been killed in an sailing accident on Lake Te Anau. There is also a conspiracy theory that he faked his own death to flee to Madagascar to avoid dealing with a woman he supposedly got pregnant in town. He was rumored to have left Scotland for New Zealand for the same reason, according to our captain.
We disembarked the boat, and began our hike.
Day 1 - 5 kilometers/3 miles and very little elevation gain.
Following along the peaceful river
Yeah, this was an easy day to say the least. It barely even counted as a hiking day compared to the following days. There was brilliant sun and I was having fun spotting all the different types of ferns. (Stay tuned for a blog posts of just fern photos). We took the last boat out so we were definitely some of the last to arrive at Clinton hut, so we ended up with top bunks. At dinner we were treated to a talk from ranger Ross, who was wearing his fabulous shorts. He explained that he drank the water from the streams and that he was 5'4 when he arrived and now was 6'5''. The mood was light hearted and excitement could be felt around the mess hall. Falling asleep was a different story. I think that first night alone there were 10 snorers in our area so sleep did not come easy.
Day 2 - 16.5 kilometers/10.25 miles and ~350 meters/950 feet of elevation gain.
Day two started out well. The sun was out and we were on our way. I was getting over my disappointment after misidentifying a weka for a kiwi. We slowly made our way up the valley and did the side turn offs to hidden lake. Even though it was 10 miles, the day went by fast and so did the miles. When we reached the turn off for guided hikers, and we saw that we had another 1.5 hours left to reach Mintaro hut, I will admit the ease of the day was starting to wear off. The last half an hour was pretty brutal. The legs were tired and we were both ready to get the packs off our backs. We did finally reach Mintaro hut. We learned we had to tie our boots together and hang them from the pegs to keep the keas from stealing them and pulling out the leather. Sand flies were starting to get to us at this point as well. We were in a smaller room with 9 other hikers and sleep did not come easy with 3 snorers in the room. My alter-cranky self emerged the next morning with only a few hours of sleep.
Slowly making our way up the meadow - enjoying all the bird songs
Day 3 - 14 kilometers/8.7 miles and ~400 meters/1300 feet of elevation gain and ~750 meters/2400 feet of elevation loss.
This day was brutal but probably not for the reason you think. Actually the elevation gain was the easy part. We had trained for this and we were hiking on fresh legs. We were also really fortunate because again we had brilliant sunshine and we could see in all directions. The view from the top was beautiful and we celebrated with a square of chocolate.
Flowers that required their photo taken. It was also a really good excuse for a few second break while climbing up to the top of the p
Panorama from the pass
Taken from the bathroom at the top of the pass. That is the valley we had come up the previous day
After we had taken all of our photos, we began the hard part. The brutal decent down the other side. To make things worse the sand flies were especially bad. They bit my face, neck, hands, ears, and any other amount of skin left open for attack. The annoying thing about them, is that sometimes just smacking them wouldn't kill them. It seemed to stun them for a second or two and then they were back on the offensive again. We finally did make it to the Quintin shelter attached to the guided walkers hut and massaged life back into our feet. We skipped going out to Sutherland falls, since we were told we would get a view of it from the trail and we were continuing straight to the Routeburn track the next day without a break. We did make it to Dumpling hut and about fell (well climbed into our top bunks). I was so tired this night that I didn't even care if I snored. Unfortunately since many people were nervous about making the boat in the morning, many in our room got up at 5:00am.
We followed the river back down to the valley. It was this steep on the way down.
Sutherland falls
Day 4 - 18 kilometers/11 miles to complete the Milford and 5 kilometers/3 miles to start the Routeburn - minimal elevation gain or loss from the Milford track.
This was our last day on the Milford track. We had been blessed with amazing weather the entire time on the Milford track. Clouds were slowly moving in so the sun was a little less intense. We began our hike out at 8:00am. The miles did not click by as they had before and seemed to drag on. I'm not sure if it was because we had to make it to the dock by a certain time to catch our boat, we wanted off the trail, or we were just tired, but the miles did drag on. Top it all off, I got a blister but second skin saved the day. We did get to see several waterfalls. We also were able to catch the 3:00 o'clock boat instead of our scheduled 4:00 o'clock boat. We did sit at the dock and enjoy our last square of chocolate dipping our feet into the Milford Sound, until the sand flies forced us to retreat to the shelter. We were happy about our accomplishment but a little apprehensive because we still had to complete the Routeburn in the next 2 days. Also what saved us, was the fact we got some hot food while waiting for our bus at the Milford Sound boat terminal. I'm not even entirely sure what we ate, except I remember a sandwich and juice. The only thing I cared about was that it was not freeze dried food. All two quickly we were whisked off to start the Routeburn track. A little less excited than the start of the Milford track.
Hiking out of the valley
Waterfall along the way
We made it to Milford Sound!
We did it. We hiked 33.5 miles! Onto the Routeburn