Then on Tuesday it was off down to Fiordland to do the Kepler Track After finding a backpackers (lakefront BBH) we started off on our 2 day 75km hike. It was perhaps not the smartest plan to try to break in new boots.. but still.
We started at about 2pm on the Tuesday, and got to the first hut (luxmoore) at about 6pm. The track has a really steep section to get up there. You climb about 1000m to get up onto the ridge. I must admit – I felt slightly out of shape – about 5 months ago I’d have felt a lot better after doing the hike. But I’m putting it down to the shoes for now!
Heh… it was sooo satisfactory! I carried a nice bottle of Merlot up with me. There were about 40 ppl staying in the hut – and all cooking in the communal kitchen. The pop of the cork fell into a lull in conversation. Most of the comments we got were positive (mostly about how crazy/impressive it was to carry a bottle up). But there was definitely some naked jealousy too. Excellent. Really makes it worthwhile ;)
Ehem. Anyway – onto the next morning. Which was a beautiful dawn.
This whole day we had sort of sunshine and were above the clouds for most of it. Which was actually super lucky – as the day before and most of the later days – the weather was particularly inclement.
Not too long a day this one – it would have been possible to combine the previous day and this one – into one long day – but I’m glad we didn’t – I’d have been 3/4 dead! Here’s a pic of Mick heading down the track overlooking the South Fiord of Te Anau.
We were the first to make it to the Iris Burn hut that day – so managed to find a nice quiet bunk for the night (the previous nights sleep had been just terrible – the worst snoring I’ve ever heard). Our warden that night was quite eccentric – but besides telling us about the glow worm caves nearby – and offering to play Cd’s of Kiwi calls – told us that the fastest time to run the track is 4:41:32. Course it’d be much easier if you didn’t have to carry a pack ;)
The 40km walk out the next day was pretty gruelling, and we were all happy to get back to a few cold beers in Te Anau. I was glad anyway, I’m pretty sure 1/2 way through the walk out that Glynn and Mick wanted to murder me for suggesting the walk in the first place :)
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