The Finest Walk in the World: Milford Track, days 1-2

Tags

Fiordland, Great Walk, hiking, Milford Track, New Zealand, NZ, South Island, tramping, whio

Summertime in New Zealand means camping and tramping. Many of the Great Walks are impassable in winter months when the mountains are covered in snow and ice. Even early and late in the season can bring bad weather in any mountains, as we found out several years ago when we went backpacking in the Tetons and were snowed upon on August 31st. Accordingly, we had saved all of our mountain tramps for the height of Kiwi summer. And summer of 2013 was an incredible one to be a hiker or a tourist: days of warm sun (it never really gets hot here; a summer day in most of the country tops out at about 27 degrees Celsius or 80 degree Fahrenheit) and no rain. It was a great summer for the winemakers. Unfortunately, the weather created a bad situation for the farmers; the drought—the worst in 30 or 70 years depending on your location in the country—meant that the cows and sheep had barely any grass on which to feed.

Despite the drought, we came prepared for soaking rains. We would be hiking in Fiordland, which, as Dick has previously mentioned, gets an average of 8000 mm (26 FEET!) of rain a year. Trampers are sometimes stuck on in a hut for a day or two when the trail becomes impassable. As recently as January of 2013, one group of hikers needed to be helicoptered over not one but two sections of trail that were impassable due to floods and slips. They joked that they flew the Milford track rather than hiking it.

The Milford Track is easily the most popular of New Zealand’s Great Walks. And it’s tightly regulated, with hiking only allowed in one direction. There are two ways to make the four-day tramp: on your own or with a guided group. The guided walk takes fives days (which includes a final day of cruising on Milford Sound) will cost you $1930 for a bunk bed in low season. For a private room with ensuite bathroom during high season, you’ll pay $2405 per person for two people sharing, $3020 if you’re on your own. The price means that you’ll be hiking in luxury, with flush toilets, hot showers, and three-course gourmet meals cooked for you.

There are 40 spots available for “independent walkers” in the huts along the trail, which was what we chose. It’s not exactly an inexpensive option, coming to $354 per person once all the transport is booked. And hiking Milford requires a lot of transport:

The boat that would take us from Te Anau Downs to the start of the track

Step 1: Bus from Te Anau to the boat departure point of Te Anau Downs.

Step 2: Boat from Te Anau Downs to the start of the trail at Glade Wharf.

Step 3: Your own two feet to hike the 55 kilometers (33.5 miles).

Step 4: Boat from the end of the trail at Sandfly Point to the village at Milford Sound.

Step 5: Bus from Milford Sound back to Te Anau.

Once you book the first night in a hut, the booking system automatically books everything else. You are not permitted to stay more than a night nor are you able to go faster and “skip” a hut. This means that from the time you depart Te Anau Downs, you’ll be with the same group for the four days and three nights to come. We thought that aspect of the tramp might be a bit strange, but we ended up really enjoying our time with our fellow hikers. It also came in pretty handy when we realized that we had forgotten to bring a cooking pot because we had 38 other people to borrow one from. (Well, actually, 37 other people. Astonishingly, we weren’t the only ones who had forgotten a pot; a young Belgian on his gap year had also left his behind.)

There was much excitement and oohing and aahing as we traveled toward Glade Wharf on Lake Te Anau. It was a stunning day to be setting out with the Kepler and Murchison Mountains rising above the western shore of lake.

Making our way across Lake Te Anau to Glade Wharf

Start of our hike!

The first day was an easy 5 km (3.1 miles) flat hike along the banks of the Clinton River, which we would follow for much of the first two days. There was plenty to investigate along the way, like the large red beech tree (we weren’t quite sure which one was THE large red beech, as there were several big trees down the side trail), and the wetland walkway. With the drought—the last major rains has been seven weeks earlier—the wetland wasn’t very wet, but it was a stunning flat meadow from which we could appreciate the mountains ringing us. After arriving at Clinton Hut, we took our lunch back down toward the river. And there, once again, we met our nemesis, the dreaded sandfly. I was hoping to spend some time reading along the riverbank before the free guided ranger walk several hours later, but the sandflies chased us back to the hut and inside in less than 30 uncomfortable minutes.

Large red beech (tawa) tree. Is this the one, perhaps?

Wetland walkway

Ranger Ross, the ranger in charge of Clinton Hut, was amazing. He is everything that the face of the Department of Conservation should be, friendly, funny, and incredibly knowledgeable.

The Clinton Hut complex. Two separate large bunkrooms and a huge kitchen and dining area.

I have the utmost respect for park rangers, probably dating back to childhood ranger talks in Acadia National Park (stars) and Great Smoky National Park, so it was wonderful to see a ranger who lived up to my ideal. The rangers in the huts on the Tongariro Northern Circuit were aloof and didn’t leave a great impression. Ross is in his 70s, at least 7 feet tall (I’m exaggerating, but not by much) and “thin as,” with knobbly knees, and a dry Kiwi sense of humor. If you do Google searches for him, you will find more than one comparison to Gandalf. Walking staff, yes. Beard, no. He led an hour long walk around the hut in the early evening and taught us a ton about the flora and fauna of the area, including tastes of various leaves. (Mmm, pepper plant.) He also showed us how high the floods had been in January when the groups were flown by helicopter over floods areas—up over his belly button or pretty much at eye level for most of us.

Ranger Ross at Clinton Hut

After a great backpacking dinner (Dick had made and frozen beef chili which reheated perfectly and went great with tasty cheese, New Zealand “Doritos” for some crunch, and the red wine that we had brought in a 1 liter plastic water bottle to last for the next three nights), we gathered outside with much of the rest of our group. Lee, a delightfully quirky Kiwi bloke, had rounded us all up at an appointed time to watch the International Space Station streak across the cloudless sky. Afterward, I snuggled down in my sleeping bag on my bunk and Dick went out with fellow Americans Alyssa (a recent college grad), Mark (a veterinarian and permanent ex-pat who wanders the world), and Lincoln to look for glowworms along the trail.

Day two brought more fine weather, and the opportunity to look for whio (Blue ducks or Hymenolaimus malacorhynchos) along the Clinton River. The whio is yet another highly endangered endemic New Zealand species, who reside in a very specific habitat. A pair will establish a territory on a section of fast-flowing mountain rivers, one of only three species in the world that live year-round in fast flowing water. They are not big fans of flying. Between stoats hunting them, and their habitat being limited due to the damming of rivers for hydroelectric power, there are an estimated total of 2,000-3,000 left. We were lucky enough to glimpse a pair—with their coloring, they are not exactly easy to see amongst the boulders—who allowed us to watch them for a while. 

A pair of whio. You can see the bands on the leg of the one at left. His (her?) mate was unbanded.

Also along this section of the trail was evidence of the telephone system which once linked the huts in this remote area before the days of radio communication. Ranger Ross had helpfully given us some landmarks to look for to find the old phone booth on the back on a tree.

Dick calls for a pizza delivery

We followed the trail along a very gradual incline, passing by a viewpoint of Hirere Falls and through the flat around Dead Lake, where we watched some delicious looking fish swim, and an open area where a side trail headed off toward Hidden Lake. It was about lunch time, so we took the detour and found the pretty lake a pleasant spot for a rest.

View back down the Clinton River Valley from Hidden Lake

Dick relaxing along the banks of Hidden Lake

Continuing through beech forest and across the “prairie” section, we could see Mackinnon Pass high above us. Many folks were enjoying a swim in Prairie Lake here. No swimming for me (brr!), so we continued along our way, up toward Bus Stop Shelter set along the banks of Marlene’s Creek. The bridge is often impassable during heavy rains, so the shelter is designed to given folks a dry area to wait for the river waters to recede to a safe level. Not a problem today, so we carried on. Soon, the trail got serious. We began to huff and puff as we encountered our first serious climb.  It was all uphill from here to Mintaro Hut, where we were greeted by another great ranger, the hilarious, vivacious, fast-talking Caty Pai.

No need to wait for the bus on this sunny day!

Hiking boots lined up at Mintaro Hut. (Safe from the curious and destructive mountain kea.)

Tomorrow we would head up and over the Mackinnon Pass, the high point and highlight of the tramp.  Our fingers were crossed for continued fine weather, but we were warned that morning clouds often cling to the pass.

To be continued…