Milford Track - Stats & Maps

Tracking for this trip is WAY off, as I discovered once home that my iPhone likes to take aimless wanders into the local area when tracking on Map My Walk (for example, my 3.5km walk from daycare to work is apparently 4.6km on iPhone MMW, joy).
But, here's what I have, because this is now what I do.

Day ONE - Overall a good pace, we paused a lot to admire birds and the river near Glade Lodge, which slowed us down in that km, but given we only had a few km to walk and full packs, we mostly just kept moving.
Fitbit: 20,417 steps
MapMyWalk: 5.53km, 63m gain, 8,924 steps while walking, 4,322kJ
DoC: 5km (plus wetland walk)

Day TWO - the 4th km was our biggest gain (160m), but the last 2.5km included nearly 300m gain between them, and between that and the heat, we slowed down a chunk - our only slower km was the one where we put our packs down to whip into Pomplona Lodge to check if the wallet we found belonged there, and the tracker was left on in my pack. A constant, steady uphill with little to no respite. Interesting that MMW suggested more steps than I actually took - I've never had that happen before.
Fitbit: 32,496 steps
MapMyWalk: 20.55km, 763m gain, 37,531 steps while walking, 19,430kJ
DoC: 16.5km (plus two short side trails to waterfalls, probably 1km return each max)

Day THREE - I am enormously sad at just how much I can't trust the tracking on this day. According to MMW, we climbed nearly 1100m, including several stints of 200+m vertical in a km, when I know we were mostly downhill or along a ridge. The tracking looks like my 4yo tried to follow the line.
Fitbit: 37,628 steps
MapMyWalk: 24.32km, 1,083m gain, 47,312 steps while walking, 25,221kJ
DoC: 14km (plus Southerland Falls - about 1.5km each way)

Day FOUR - A steady day. A few slow kms, and a couple of spots where the iPhone just really could not get the tracking right, but it wasn't as far our as the day across the tops. At least the general gist of the tracks are right.
Fitbit: 37,377 steps
MapMyWalk: 20.68km, 329m gain, 35,333 steps while walking, 17,682kJ
DoC: 18km (no side tracks)

Example of one of the loops on the tracker

Hidden Scenery

Milford Track, Great Walk. Lake Te Anau to Milford Sound
Party: Mark, Me
19 – 22 December 2017


Getting to the Milford Track is a feat of organisational skill, even doing so as a domestic visitor. We had to know what dates we wanted so that when bookings opened, we were only trying for specific dates – and then we had to get through the overloaded bookings system, which we barely managed. Add in sorting getting physically TO and from the track, and well, it took a bit of planning!

After leaving Spike in Christchurch with his grandparents and cousins, we jumped on our quick flight to Queenstown, where it was gloriously sunny. Our bus to Te Anau (TrackNet) picked us up at the commuter bus stop immediately outside arrivals about 2 minutes later than scheduled, and dropped us to our accommodation in Te Anau.

The next morning, after checking out and leaving a bag at reception for our return, we hefted our packs and wandered along the lakefront to the DoC visitor centre to pick up our passes for the track. With a couple of hours free time, we then left our packs behind and walked back into town for a last café break before grabbing our bus.

The wind at Te Anau downs was fierce and freezing, so everyone bundled up into their jackets while waiting for the launch to arrive for our pickup. The sun came back out as we cruised up the lake, enjoying the views of the mountains and the Southern Rata, but jackets stayed on as it didn’t really warm up as we hit the start of the track.

The wander in to Clinton hut was largely smooth sailing. We stopped outside Glade Lodge to remove our jackets, and were the last independent walkers from our boat across the famous swing bridge over the Clinton river. It wasn’t long before we started spotting the robins that became synonymous with our trip. The bush was lush and thick, and we got snippets of view as we walked. Arriving at the hut, we found it only 2/3 full, both of us nabbing bottom bunks in one of the two bunkrooms. We settled in to chill out for the afternoon, reading or doing the jigsaw puzzle laid out in the dining room. It was a bit of a late night, given it didn’t get dark till after lights out and we hadn’t walked far – everyone had loads of energy.

The Praire

Day 2 dawned fine and clear. We ambled off about mid group, stopping regularly (at first) to admire the robins we were seeing along the track. It seemed not long before we reached the lunch shelter used by the guided walkers, where we later discovered we should have topped up our water. It was already getting pretty warm, so we enjoyed a break in the shade before heading off, planning to lunch ourselves at Prairie Shelter.

Prairie Shelter was a roof with no sides. It reflected the heat back in, did nothing to deter the sandflies, and would have been a miserable place to stop in bad weather. While it had a toilet, it had no water supply. It also had a local population of weka, which made the break here a bit more entertaining.

Along the way, at one of the side tracks, we had picked up a wallet accidentally dropped out of a pack. We made an effort to stop at the guided walkers lodge at Pomplona to ensure it wasn’t one of theirs from a previous day (we were confident the current days walkers were all somewhere behind us), before discovering just shy of Mintaro hut that the wallet belonged to a member of a party on our own walking day – good thing too, since it had drivers licences and car keys in it!

A half moments personal reflection was had as we crossed the creek bed immediately past the Guided Walkers Pomplona Lodge – likely the place where the young couple got into trouble a couple of winters ago – to contemplate the crossing of that water course in high flows without a bridge. Crossing it when there was no flow was challenging enough.

Eventually, after being slightly broken by the heat of the day and having run out of water, we made it to Mintaro Hut, where we grabbed a couple of mattresses effectively on the floor and chilled out awaiting a time suitable for cooking dinner, opting not to join several other parties in a mission to the top of the hill to see the views before the weather closed in.

The forecast rain arrived at about 4am, and was soon a steady drizzle. Such an incredible change from the heat of the day before. Suddenly there were thousands of waterfalls visible from the deck of the hut, and we were going up into the clouds and through to the other side in it.

The climb up to Mackinnon Pass was actually almost my favourite part of the trip, despite the weather. The track was well graded, the zig zags enabled good altitude gains while not being too steep, and despite the clouds we got glimpses of amazing views. Cresting out at the top we found the memorial and some tarns, with a bitingly cold wind that had us briefly confer about whether we should stop and put on additional clothing (we opted not to). Mt Balloon and the 12 second drop both kept teasingly peeking out of the cloud before vanishing again, and we spotted a very cold looking weka just as we arrived at the shelter.

Walking into the shelter was like walking into a steam room. Everyone was wet through and sweaty, plus people were (sensibly) taking advantage of the provided gas and water to have hot drinks before heading off again. The toilet with a view had no view to speak of, and one of the girls in another party was struggling with hypothermia (which her party had well under control, utilising group members spare gear and refilling a water bladder with warm water).

Down the hill was a long, slow, cumbersome slog. The track was clear, but not well-formed. There were a lot of unbalanced rocks and huge steps. It had some positives though – Roaring Burn Creek was amazing in the rain, and Andersons Cascade is a massively under-advertised part of the day, especially if it’s been raining.

We finally stopped for lunch at Andersons Cascade shelter, most of the way down the hill. We were eaten alive by sandflies while there, so didn’t stay for long, opting to push on towards Quintin Lodge, where there was another shelter (with a flush toilet and a water boiler). We had decided on our way down that we wouldn’t go out the side track to Sutherland Falls as we were both so tired, but after 20 minutes rest at Quintin, were persuaded by others that we should. We made it to the second swing bridge before deciding we were rather done-in and needed to be aiming for our own hut again.

Not our pack, thank goodness!

Dumpling Hut was a sight for sore feet when we finally got there, although we were far from the last in for the evening. The bunkrooms stank from people hanging their sweaty damp clothes on the bunk ends (to avoid kea predation), despite there being drying racks in the living room. Most people retired early for the night, disbelieving the wardens suggestion on walking times, after all taking significantly longer to get down from the pass than suggested by the previous warden.

Mark and I were the last ones out the next morning, departing as the first guided walkers appeared on the deck in search of toilets. I had massive tendonitis lumps on my Achilles, and so was unable to walk in my boots, instead needing to strap my feet and borrow Mark’s Teva sandals.

Giants Gate Falls

The walk out was odd – I was actively trying to keep my feet dry for starters, and had to be concerned about rocks because kicking one accidentally would have been painful. We ran into Akiko again (a guide for the private walkers, who we had jump-frogged with the day before) a couple of times and she was full of good advice for dealing with the walk out in sandals.

The various waterfalls on the last day of the Milford are lovely, and the track was largely under cover of trees, so not too hot. We made reasonable time, but the last mile seemed interminable. Arriving at Sandfly Point shelter about 5 minutes before the recommended 15-minutes-before-departure of our boat was a relief.

The boat trip back over was incredibly bumpy, as the rivers were up and the tide was moving in, along with the afternoon sea breeze. When we loaded, we had all considered that perhaps opening the blinds would be good to let the breeze in. By the time we were half way back, we were super glad we hadn’t as the spray was huge.

Grabbing a seat in the air conditioned wharf building while we waited for our bus home, Mark whipped up to the café to get ice creams, which were absolute bliss. Thankfully there were only about 6 of us on the bus, so we could put our feet up in preparation for limping off at our accommodation in Te Anau.

Routeburn: The physical work

I used Map My Walk on my phone to track our route - speed and altitude - for our Routeburn Tramp, and it was quite interesting (and INSANE) to contemplate, now that its all said and done.

 Day One. Not at all sure what was recorded for that first hour, because I'm pretty sure it wasn't all down hill (and dramatically so), especially since the breakdown suggests we started at 580m, not the 1500-odd that the elevation indicator shows! The map is fairly close to accurate though for the line.
You can clearly see where we started climbing - bang on the 9km mark. There were a LOT of stops on the way up the hill, and I had a rule that apart from lunch, I didn't stop the tracker during the day. Every km has some climb, with the last 2.7km involving 330m uphill (Routeburn Flats to Routeburn Falls Huts).
Fitbit: 24,398 steps over day
MapMyWalk: 10.72km, 14,577 steps while walking, 16,000kJ

 Day Two. Started reasonably high and got higher. You can see we climbed quite gradually up to the saddle, then it was a chunk of drop on to the Hollyford Face, before a gradual climbing sidle to the top. Clearly Laurie and I made good pace dropping down to Lake Mackenzie. Average pace much slower, and that first 3km was SO slow. Yikes. That will have been the 400m climb, plus the views, snow and heat! The last 2km was almost entirely downhill, with only a 3m gain from the lowest point at the very end. All other km breakdowns had a bigger climb.
Fitbit: 30,211 steps over day
MapMyWalk:  10.93km, 14,870 steps while walking, 21,824kJ

Day Three. Our fastest day on average, which is awesome, considering how exhausted we all were. Also just the longest. The gradual climb away from the hut is clear, and then its obviously a long sidle around. The descent to Lake Howden looks more obvious here than it felt at the time. The slower sections involved a bit more climbing on rough terrain (which Claires sore feet found really hard) and then the 5-6km distance involved Earland Falls, which we negotiated very slowly (large, wet rocks, with a nasty fall), and stopped for food.
Somehow, our climb up to the Key Summit turnoff (199m over about 1km) only took 20 minutes, and every single km involved SOME uphill from its lowest point (the least uphill was the last km, with 4m up).
Fitbit: 31,943 steps over day
MapMyWalk:  12.91km, 17,555 steps while walking, 18,723kJ

Sunshine on Harris Saddle

29 November - 1 December 2015
Routeburn Track, Mt Aspiring / Fiordland National Parks
Team: Laurie, Ange, Claire, Marion, Me

Friday was spent in a haze of packing and worrying. Reports in from Queenstown were not good - a severe storm had just gone through and the Glenorchy Road was closed due to tree fall. Thankfully, by the time we got to the airport on Saturday afternoon, the roads had been cleared and power and been restored to the district.

Our adventure began at Queenstown airport, where Claires pack lost a strap when she tried to pick it up to carry it to the taxi stand. Oh dear. A pack with only one shoulder strap is no use for a 3-day, 32km tramp. Grabbing a taxi the 1/2km to our accommodation (because our bags were huge and it was trying to rain on us), we started googling for pack hire, trying to find one local at Remarkables Park. No such luck. We sent Claire off on the bus to Queenstown to pick up a hire pack in town, while we aimlessly wandered the supermarket for ages getting our tramping food and something for dinner.

Sunday morning dawned incredibly fair, if a little nippy. Up stupid early to get everyone through a last shower before we hit the track, we were all just nicely ready when our shuttle arrived to collect us. The amount of treefall on the side of the road was incredible. It was amazing what the roading staff had managed to clean up since the storm.

We were among the first on to the track that morning, our five, two others who shared our van, and a group of guided walkers all heading off at about the same time. We overtook each other with regularity past the first gorgeous waterfall, and all the way to the riverside where we stopped for morning tea and to soak in the atmosphere of exactly where we were, and what stunning weather we had (just in case it didn't last - Fiordland weather is fickle!).

Cruising on up valley, we got to Routeburn Flats hut at a good time for lunch. Yes, it had taken longer than the DOC suggested time to get there, but while we had fine weather we didn't care. Chilling out in the sunshine at a picnic table on the grass in front of the hut was blissful. The hut is clearly designed with daywalkers in mind, having a HUGE covered space with benches, sinks, tables and seats.

The rest of our days walking was uphill. All of it. So in went my earbuds and off I went. We agreed before we headed off that we would all climb at our own pace, taking long stops in a couple of specific locations, with the person at the front regularly waiting for sight of the person at the back, and each person stopping when they wanted to, for however long they wanted to (avoiding the caterpillar effect of the front stopping and then moving on as soon as the back catches up, leaving the back feeling like they dont get a break).

The climb was a long, plodding slog. But we made good time - I arrived first in just on 1.5 hours, and the others dribbled in one every 5 minutes after that. I had planned to walk back down the track and find the back marker, since I was feeling good, but by the time I had greeted each person and celebrated with them that we had made it, the next person had arrived.

Snagging ourselves some bunks, we also grabbed a prime position on the deck, where we had a view out to the peaks on the opposite side of the valley, and chilled out for a while. It was still early afternoon, but Routeburn Falls Hut was already largely in shade. Taking turns, we went for wanders up to the falls proper, and down to the prominent rock below the hut (which is so popular it really needs a track built to it rather than the scramble over slippery boulders that you take at the moment).

Dinner was endured, the hut talk from the ranger was hilarious, and we all stayed up late enough for the lights to turn on. The early loss of sunshine meant the bunkroom was quite cold - the dining room was only warm because the ranger had lit the coal range around 5pm.

Waking at 6am Monday for a toilet break, I discovered that some keen beans were already up, packed and on their way out for the day. The beginning of the morning was beautiful and I contemplated just staying up, but opted to go back to bed for a bit more rest as I knew we had another chunky climb and big descent ahead of us.

Breakfast, pack and a little bit of housekeeping later and we were on our way. Two steps off the deck and the climbing that would be the bulk of our day started. We dawdled our way up to the top of the falls, enjoying our last views over the Routeburn Valley. Then we turned into the upper valley below Harris Saddle. Wow. The valley opening ahead of us was immense. And incredible. The track vanished into the distance where we could see tiny people walking ahead of us. 

We took a LOT of photo stops on the climb up to Harris Saddle, including to play with some snow and to watch an Australian family climb a huge rock to get a great photo. We again followed our caterpillar approach, each walking at their own pace, stopping frequently to make sure everyone was ok. We briefly debated stopping for something to eat on the promontory overlooking Lake Harris, but opted to continue on the 500m to the shelter at the saddle and have an early lunch (so we could claim to bag it by stopping in and eating there). We somewhat regretted this decision, as the promontory had been sheltered from what was actually quite a cool breeze apparent at Harris Saddle Shelter.

Lunch at Harris Saddle was rediculously early - not long after 11am. But we figured from the map that it would be our last place to stop and stretch out for a good couple of hours at the pace we were all going. The trip along the Hollyford face is a bit of a blur for me. The combination of heat, exertion, pack weight on shoulders and sunhat / sunglasses pressing on the side of my head was not doing wonders for my brain. This was exacerbated by running out of water before Ocean Peak Corner, leaving me with a near migraine. The views through this part of the day became a bit monotonous, compared with what we had been experiencing, since we were simply walking above the Hollyford Valley for several kms. Some parts of the track are quite tremendously exposed through here, which left some members of our party struggling.

Laurie and I wound up pushing ahead to try and beat my migraine to the hut, leaving the other three behind as a group to make their way at their own pace. Just before we started off, having left a message with the Australians to pass on to Ange, Marion and Claire (who we were confident weren't far behind us), we saw Ange bounding up the track with no pack on. "Oh fuck" went the murmur through the six of us. Thankfully, Ange was just coming to tell us they were fine, just slow, struggling a little with the exposure and Claire having a sore foot and were more than happy to just see us at the hut. I was loathe to break the group up to the extent we were going to. But if I slowed myself down to Claire's pace with her sore foot, I would have been blind from the headache before I reached the hut.

We tried to cheer them (and ourselves) up by telling them the top should be "just around the corner". This was a lesson in how big a distance "just around the corner" is, in such a landscape. Turning the corner at that point, where we thought we had done the last of the uphill / sidle and should be starting to drop again was the only point of the trip where I really struggled - more uphill. We were sure the ranger the night before, and the track profile in the brochure had said it was "basically all downhill" from Harris Saddle to Mackenzie Hut. What a load of bollocks. It was a bumpy sidle that seemed a lot more uphill than down and ended with a vicious wee climb.

A seat in the shade with lots of water, no pack and no sunhat was such a blessing once we finally got to Mackenzie Hut, first spotted as a tiny dot ALL THE WAY DOWN THERE. Laurie and I collapsed on the front deck of the hut at about 3:15, just over 7 hours after we left Routeburn Falls (although we did spend nearly an hour at lunch). We dithered for a bit about bunk spaces, eventually signed ourselves in, changed out of our sweaty clothes and into lightweight alternatives (it was still 22C at the hut at 6pm, despite being at nearly 900m AMSL).and settled in to wait for the others, hoping they weren't too far behind.

Our relaxed state started turning to nerves as our self-imposed "will go looking for them" (to make sure nothing had happened) time started to draw closer. We asked people as they ambled in if they had seen them, and most indicated their last sighting had been somewhere up on the switchbacks above Lake Mackenzie. Finally, the ranger (who we had seen way up on the Hollyford face) came through and said he had seen them only a couple of minutes prior, taking the turnoff for the high water track. Finally, over 2 hours after Laurie and I arrived, and nearly 4.5 hours since we had last seen them, they stumbled in. Claire promptly burst into tears of relief at having made it - her description of how she was feeling sounded a bit like plantar fasciitis to me, far from ideal when tramping.

Another dinner was endured (freeze-dry is not really my ideal food, but with 5kg of camera gear, I was weight saving where ever else I could), we all had a quick wade into the (very cold) lake and wandered around in shorts, singlet and jandals till it was time for the hut talk. Which we had on the deck in the sunshine. Bliss. Until the sun suddenly vanished and the temperature dropped about 10C in 2-3 minutes. I was stuck in the middle of the group, unable to get out surreptitiously, still in my lightweight warm-weather clothes. Not ideal!

Bedtime followed almost immediately the hut talk finished (the ranger was certifiable, and hilarious), with a plan to definitely be off early in the morning to allow extra time for Claires foot to slow proceedings. Allowing ourselves 6 hours to complete track that was indicated to take 4-4.5 should be plenty, right?

Amazingly, Tuesday morning dawned brilliantly fair again. What a run of weather we had hit! The forecast was for rain “mid afternoon”, which suggested we may just miss it with our 2pm pickup. The track from Mackenzie hut ambles along with a few climbs for a while, then starts to sidle past a couple of gorgeous waterfalls. We left Laurie at the first to take photos, agreeing to wait for her at the second if she didn’t catch us before then. She caught up to us as we arrived at the massive Earland falls, which were beyond incredible. Thankfully the flood track wasn’t required, and so we could get an excellent view, walking across the bottom of the falls.

Beyond here it was mostly downhill to the hut. I needed to pee and was losing sensation in one arm for some reason, so opted to push ahead of the group - no-one needed to put up with the grump I was developing - through to Howden Hut. Although I worried because I hadn’t seen the girls for quite a while by the time I got to the hut, they were only 10 minutes behind me. Sadly, we had taken almost a full 4.5 hours to do the “3 hour” walk from Mackenzie to Howden. The suggestion was 1-1.5 hours from here to the road end, and we had exactly 1.5 hours before pick-up.

Lunch was a hurried affair, watching the new batch of guided walkers arrive to be greeted with chocolate biscuits, hot tea and coffee and raro on the few picnic tables outside the hut, leaving us standing along the front of the deck. Laurie checked herself in for her night at Howden, grabbing just her camera kit, water and jacket and hefted Claires pack onto her back instead, to help Claire get up the hill in better time. Which worked a treat, those of us who left 5 minutes after her didn’t catch her on the slog up to the Key Summit turnoff.

Here we said goodbye to Laurie, who was continuing on to do the Caples track without us. Marion and I stretched out our legs and whipped down the hill as fast as we could to ensure we made it to the carpark before the “15 minutes or so” grace from the shuttle ran out, arriving at about 1:50 (which means, even at our good pace, it still took the full suggested 45 minutes down the hill). Dumping packs and grabbing a drink, Marion headed back to see if she could help the others, who walked out at 2:01 under their own steam, totally stoked (as well they deserved to be!). 

Back to Queenstown in the shuttle, window wide open almost all the way because it was still really warm. We grabbed dinner from the supermarket across the road from our accommodation, and then most of us headed for a walk to the pools (about 2km) for a shower and then swim, absolute bliss after three long days walking!

Another stupid loss

Winter tramping can be fantastic. I would imagine that winter tramping in Fiordland would be epic.

But for a group of trampers on the Milford Track this week, its turned deadly.

At the end of April, the track switches to "winter" mode. The guided walk huts are locked, the gas is turned off at the public huts, and work is started on removing several key bridges that are on avalanche paths - cheaper to chopper them in and out each season than to rebuild them every year.

One of these bridges is over the Pampolona River. Its a known flood path in heavy rain.

On the DoC website, there is a LOT of information about winter tramping in Fiordland, and especially on the Milford Track. Including this:

Many of the bridges are removed over winter to avoid damage from avalanches.
You must be competent at crossing large, swift, icy rivers.

The track over Mackinnon Pass is not marked and is often covered in deep snow.
You need to have navigation and alpine skills to traverse this section of track.

(emphasis mine)

So, I'm curious as to where this group of trampers were getting their information from about the track.  Given it sounds like they only met at the start of the track, and made poor decisions as a group, I almost wonder if all their information was from a Lonely Planet guide book.

From quotes given by a survivor, the group reached the river late in the afternoon, after a few hours hike, discovered it was high and decided against turning back because it would involve walking in the dark. A classic case of bad decision making it seems. This is why people die in rivers - because they decide to risk it. And its so horrific for the girls family, and her two tramping companions.

(Almost) Four Seasons in three days

Kepler Track, Fiordland National Park
29 - 31 December 2008
Amelia and Mark

Monday
Man I hate Monday mornings. Even more so when you are meant to be on holiday and still have to get up early. This morning was made even harder by the fact that two days previous I had managed to get VERY sunburnt at Mt Cook, and it had been VERY warm overnight in our room at the Holiday Park in Te Anau, where it had stayed light until well after we were in bed and asleep.
After a quick breakfast and re-pack of the car, we were off to Safer Parking (its home for the next three days) to wait for our shuttle to collect us. Sure, we could have walked the 45-odd minutes around the lakefront to the control gates to start the track, but we figured the cost to get a ride was small enough to spare and save us some time!

Pick up was at some ungodly hour (about 8.30am), so we had to be all set, with the car parked before then. We made it with a couple of minutes to spare, and were at the control gates, ready to start the track at about 9am. It was sunny, warm and a lovely day to be enjoying the shade of the bush when carrying three days worth of stuff, plus emergency gear! (our food was a substantial portion of this weight it turned out!). The weather was not meant to stay nice for all three days though, so we enjoyed it while it lasted!

The first hour or so was a gentle wander on a track nice and wide enough for us to walk alongside each other. We got to Brod Bay in good time, and paused here for a nibble and drink before racing off again to escape the resident sandfly population (Note: NEVER camp there!!), deciding to have lunch well up the hill. We targetted getting to the Limestone Bluffs that are mentioned in the guide book, and when we got to 1pm and still hadnt reached them, we gave up and had lunch where we were. Needless to say, we found them about 20 mins further up the track, and stopped for a second lunch stop at a nice seating area alongside them with an Australian Family.



Eventually we arrived at Luxmore Hut and found ourselves beds in the smaller bunkroom. I have to say that for a huge hut, it has a tiny, and poorly planned out, communual area. The kitchen is cramped, and to ensure they have seating for most people, there is a dining table in the middle of it! I guess they hoped that it would only be full in good weather when it was built, which would allow most people to sit outside. It does have quite a cool inside-outside feel to it though. "Cool" being the operative word - from the warm bunkrooms and kitchen, through the COLD hallway and toilet area... At least the loos are flush ones during the summer season!

Dinner was sweet and sour pork with pasta (since we were having pasta again the next night it saved also buying rice). Full of fresh veges and with fresh meat. Had a funny moment when I came out of the bunkroom with our dinner stuff laden in my arms, to see someone coming out of the other bunkroom with theirs - one pot and a packet of Rice Risotto. Would rather our dinner over theirs any day. In fact, I think we had the best dinner in the hut that night, and I have to say that the extra weight to carry it (and the bottle of wine to share over two nights) was SO worth it when we saw what others were eating... Lots of unhappy faces over the dehy there!

The smaller bunkroom has massive picture windows, which would be nice if it werent for the fact that daylight hours extend out to nearly midnight at that time of year down there! The photo below is of the view from the deck outside the bunkroom as we went to bed about 9.30pm... I wound up using a bandanner as a blindfold to get to sleep, while Mark hid himself deep into his sleeping bag (I would have been FAR too hot if I had too!)


Tuesday
We decided not to rush out the door for day two, as the weather was meant to stay reasonably fair all day, and only rain later in the afternoon. It was straight up hill to start with, and the wind was quite gusty at times (even though it was less windy than both the day before and the day after). We had both started the morning with walking poles, which soon got put back on the sides of our packs because they were getting blown around something wicked! Most depressing on this day were the bits of track where you could see what looked to be about the next two hours of track ahead of you - and there were lots of these bits!

We got to the turn-off to Mt Luxmore summit and decided that since we were here we should really go up to the top proper. The wind at the turn-off was freezing, so we rugged up in layers of warm clothes. Mark headed off like a mountain goat while I struggled up with sore Achilles tendons from the day before. I made it eventually, and was glad that I had when I saw the view from the top. We got one of the guys there to take a photo of the two of us and then headed back down to the main track.

From there it was a quick slog to the Forest Burn Shelter for lunch. The last bit down to the shelter is a steep and nasty zig zag, but the shelter has a toilet and on a nice day has a good deck to sit on and a picnic table. From there to Hanging Valley Shelter should take about 2 hours, but we were there in less than one.


We were going to take a longer break at Hanging Valley before attacking the downhill section of the track, but the spits of rain we started to feel put us off that idea, so off we went! The downhill from Hidden Valley Shelter to Iris Burn Hut has to be one of my most miserable memories from the entire trip, as after about 1.5 hours of straight downhill I was in considerable pain in both knees and could barely walk by the time we got to the hut. What was meant to take about 2 hours wound up taking us nearly 4 at my final pace. I do have to admit to being intensely grateful for my walking poles in this section though, as my knees would have gone sooner if it wasnt for them!

Iris Burn Hut has three bunkrooms. One massive one, with lots of dark hidey holes (great if you want to sleep in I guess), one tiny one with just four beds, which I suspect used to be the rangers room, and a large airy one with about 20 bunks upstairs. Yes. Upstairs. Guess which bunkroom we ended up in?? Can I just say how glad I was that I didnt need to get up and go the toilet in the middle of the night?? The only problem with the upstairs bunkroom is that the only windows directly above the platform bunks, which also have a low, sloping roof above them. At least the bunks werent full, so I could spread out a little and not have to kick a rafter all night!
Dinner was pasta and veges with pesto sauce and got some very envous glances from the dehy-dinner brigade, especially when we pulled out fudge for dessert!

Wednesday
Tramping out was wet. The aim for most of the day was simply to keep moving, and this was about all I managed to do. There are some very cool parts to the track through here, and it is mostly flat for the entire day. We saw a kea alongside the river at one point, but my camera wouldnt zoom in close enough to get a good photo, plus the light was dim, so it wanted to take a longer exposure, making for a blurry picture. Damn having no dSLR!!

We stopped for lunch at Moturau Hut, where the warden had a nice fire going. For lunch we had planned to have sandwiches of some description, but being so wet, we decided to cook up some of our emergency food (chicken soup), and some of our leftover food (pasta) for lunch. It wound up being remarkably good, and we decided that adding some salami would make it a great super lightweight dinner on a future tramp.

We then missioned out to Rainbow Reach for an earlier shuttle to get us back to civilisation and hot showers. We had booked for 5pm, and if the weather had been nice, even with the pain in my knees, we probably would have taken more time and used that shuttle. Instead we made it out for a 3pm ride out with the same company. In fact, we arrived at the road end in good enough time to wait for 15 minutes for the shuttle... I contemplated changing into dry clothes, but my raincoat was soaked through and the rain was still pretty torrential, so I thought I would leave that for our accommodation.

We were returned to our car at Safer Parking, and Mark drove us around town looking for a place to stay. We abandoned our booked tent site in favour of a motel with a bed and private bathroom, (it was one of the only places we could see that had a vacancy sign!) meaning we could both get out of wet stuff straight away, rather than having to find and pitch a tent in the rain (it was also useful that the motel had towels, as ours were now wet from having been sat on for the journey from Safer Parking to the motel!). Having hot showers in our room and sleeping on a bed rather than an air mattress was great too, as was having ample room to put wet stuff and dry stuff without having to worry about whether they were going to get more wet from the rain!

Getting in and out of chairs and off the bed was a substantial problem for me all night (and to a lesser extent for the next couple of days), and I was so exhausted that I napped for about an hour before dinner (we took the car a whole 1km to the Moose for it. That place is still as good as I remember!), and then again from about 9pm, to be woken by and tap on the shoulder and "Happy New Years" from Mark at midnight (so much for the "we'll sit in the motel and have a couple of beers while we wait for the new year" plan from dinner time, and the "Te Anau goes off for New Years, so lets party till the small hours" plan from before we left home!).

The rain stopped briefly at midnight, so there were fireworks, which were nice. We watched them in our PJ's from the door of our motel unit. Would have been great to have had the energy to be out on the waterfront - bet there would have been some cool shots to get. They would have had a neat view from the ridge just east of Luxmore Hut too. Might have to remember that for another year...

A walk down memory lane

February 2004 with OUTC

Alabaster Hut, Hollyford Track, Fiordland National Park

Its been so long since I did this trip, that I completely forgot it when I was writing my hut book / trip list until I found a photo of Hidden Falls Hut on my Flickr stream.

Perhaps that’s not a bad thing, as now that I remember it, I wish I didn’t.

I’ve actually done this trip twice (and there is a good chance that some of my memories of the trip are compilations of the two), both times in late February / early March with the Otago University Tramping Club. Apart from a massive mission to the Abel Tasman Coastal Track and a couple of Bushballs, its about the only tramping I did with the club (that I can remember at least) as I was constantly either too financially poor or too time poor to get out much.

2002 was my first club trip, and I was a punter. I remember two bus loads of students stopping in Gore for dinner on Friday night, harassing the bogans, lots of rain, a seriously over-full hut with a leaking roof, sleeping on a spare mattress on the floor, and sleeping on the bus on the way home.

In 200, I was living in Te Anau, and got roped in with Jo F to lead Alabaster Hut again. Not having to spend all night on the bus, and avoiding stops in Gore were big plusses to doing this trip again. I started packing at about the time the rest were leaving dinner in Gore, and was ready and waiting in my room when the text came through at about 10.30pm that they were nearly there.

The Hollyford Road end has nothing to commend it as a sleeping location except a long drop. When you have a party of about 12 people, the tiny patch of grass that was there was woefully inadequate to fit everyone, so we pitched a fly off either side of the van, my groundsheet was commandeered by a couple of American exchange students (not best pleased), and we all settled down to an uncomfortable night not really sleeping on the sloped gravel of the carpark.

Distributing the group food in the morning proved difficult, as two members of the party had bought what could only be described as school bags, and by the time they had packed their sleeping bag, warm jersey and bottle of wine into it, they claimed they had no space for group gear or food. A thought was had of leaving them behind for the weekend with their food, but we decided it wasn’t that bad a track and the rest of us could just hack it.

The weather was iffy all day, interspurced with bouts of heavy rain, and the girls were soon complaining. We stopped for lunch at Hidden Falls Hut, which was seriously infested by sandflies (outside was worse), before motoring on. Some sections of track here seemed to take forever, and I was very glad to see the guided walk companies Pyke Lodge, which meant we only had about 20 minutes to go.



The weather wasn’t nice enough to swim in the lake, so we all just chilled with a drink and our books before we had dinner. On one of the trips (it may have been this one), I got really awful chafing from wet shorts, and spent the evening trying desperately not to itch it, wearing my long johns inside out so something was resting on it, but not moving. I wound up wearing boxer shorts to walk out the next day!





Track maintenance was underway while we were there, and one of the things they had been doing was gravelling the track. But not with little gravel. The stuff they were using was an awful middle size, everyone had wicked blisters from their boots, as really you would have been better off wearing sneakers. These blisters led us to take a longer than anticipated lunch stop in the sunshine at Hidden Falls Hut.



Eventually my blisters got so bad I could barely walk any more. We started running exceedingly late. A splinter group was sent on to the road end to tell them we were definitely coming and would be there soon, but by the time they got there (20 minutes after we thought our pickup time was, so within waiting limits), the van was already gone. Turns out that there had been a mixup as to whether the pickup was 3pm Daylight time, or 3pm Standard time (as daylight saving ended on Sunday morning) and the van had waited an hour for us before leaving. Thankfully Roy dumped his load of people on the bus and came back to save us.

Our last bit of entertainment for the weekend was also a feeling of relief – the bus broke down about 30 minutes out of Te Anau, so we were exceedingly glad not to be on it! After taking my van load to my local fish n chip shop (rather than going into town, they all wanted to eat quickly then get going), they dropped me home and it was the end of my weekend. I threw the boots out when I got home after realising that the reason they had given me such awful blisters was the damage I had done to them the previous September, leaving them too close to the fire on the Abel Tasman track! (they had given me nasty blisters the last day of that tramp too)


(You'll need to click through to see this at a decent resolution...)