Kepler day 1 - The Great Climb

Since the Kepler Track is our 1st 'great walk', we decided to add a bit on by walking directly from where we were staying in Te Anau, which adds an extra 3km to the distance. It was a nice flat walk around the lake though so didn't feel too bad. By starting at 8, we'd polished off 8k by mid morning. But then came the climb! 

Day 1 of the track involves climbing 800m and, as it is a 4 day walk, the bags were heavy from all the food. The climb was unrelenting, but (unlike the Liverpool Hut climb in Aspiring national park) the path was quite well graded, and we got to the top by 2:00.

By 3:00, we'd found a bunk, had a cup of tea, chatted to a few locals, and were now bored! So we decided to do the climb to the summit today as the weather forecast was not so good for the following day.

This meant doing the first 3.5k of tomorrow's walk (twice) including an additional 400m climb, but we were unencumbered by the heavy bags  and the view was worth it.

We seem to be upgrading our hut facilities as we go through the trip. The 1st hut just had a composting loo, the second one had flushing loos. This one has flushing loos in the same building!!! We're quietly confident of a hot tub in the next hut.

At 25k and 1200m climb, this was the toughest day so far, and our feet (Dave's especially) are not impressed.

Rest day in Te Anau

We're off on the four day walk on the Kepler track tomorrow and so today was a rest and re-stock day.

The Kepler track goes up the mountains that you can see in the distance in the 1st photo, including climbing to the peak of Mount luxmore, which is the pointy one just right of centre. 

We popped over to the local wildlife sanctuary, which turned out to just be three aviaries. They were very proud of their Takehos and there was also a very bossy Shellduck, which insisted on being fed.

Te Anau is much bigger than Manapouri at least and there's a lot more going on here, including a cinema built especially to show a 30 minute film on Fiordland.

We also found the biggest and happiest eucalyptus tree we've ever seen. If you look closely you can spot Hannah to get the scale.

That's it from us for four days.... Let's hope the bad weather holds off and we get some good pictures in the next few days!

Doubtful sound

If we thought that we'd got lucky with the weather in Fox, we certainly carried that luck into Fiordland. We had two days of glorious weather in the stunning Doubtful Sound.

Hannah much appreciated her first camping experience to be in the dry.

On the first afternoon, we had a bit of a tailwind (which is never a bad thing). And on the second morning there wasn't a breath of air, and the surface of the fiord was like a mirror.

Oh and DOLPHINS! They are quite large when they swim straight towards you and pass 2 feet under your kayak! No photos I'm afraid, as it all happened rather fast, but we do have some excellent cinematography of the moment when the dolphins weren't there.

The guide, Keith, was extremely laid back, occasionally kayaking out of sight! Fortunately there were no emergencies, so that was ok. It did make for a very tranquil trip, as often there were only 4 other kayaks in sight, and these were 100s of metres away, exploring their bit of the fiord.

A bit of a coincidence, but of the 6 others on the trip, 2 worked in the energy industry (in Germany), so we had some detailed discussions on power generation while the stunning scenery passed us by.

On the subject of power generation, the 700MW Manapouri hydro station dumps into the sound, and it was noticeable when you had to paddle against the exhaust flow - even 100s of metres from the exhaust canal. If it weren't for the aluminium smelter in Southland, the station would essentially power the whole South Island.

Keith explained all about why the sound was so dark, and not at all green and milky. It is because they extract all of the light from the water in order to generate the electricity....

Manapouri... It's a bit odd!

Today was the drive to Manapouri on the edge of Fiordland. Thankfully, large chunks of the drive were boring, so we were able to make it here before dark.

The contrast between hip and happening Wanaka and sleepy Manapouri would only be more extreme if they weren't both next to lakes! It seems like a good thing that we're only here one night prior to the two day kayak trip in Doubtful Sound. The weather in Wanaka was glorious sunshine, whereas Fiordland is a bit parky! The bar-tender had a rather interesting shaved head / mullet combo, and seemed a little confused by the till, and the concept of both of us wanting the same sized 'Wild buck' lager.

The drive down took us through one of the most touristy places either of us has ever been to. Arrowtown. It was a gold rush town that now sports "New Zealand's quaintest little pharmacy"! There was a single historic main street, about 100m long, but it had about 3 layers of car parking surrounding it.

I think that we have exhausted our quota of tourism for the next few weeks, and head back into the wilds.

Next stop, Doubtful Sound, so named because Captain Cook felt that if he sailed in, he doubted that he would be able to get out. This was a historic moment for the region, topped only the fact that this will be Hannah's first camping experience!

One for Tim

As an expert in sheep dynamics and the modelling of sheep-herding phenomena, can you explain why, given that this herd of sheep had the freedom of a respectable portion of a decent sized mountain, did they all end up here?

(hopefully the blog will give you the full res photo from which to make an assessment)

Back to civilisation (and beer)

Had a very relaxing morning in the hut, chatting to Donald the DOC warden. He lives in a little house next to the hut, and is quite frankly, starved for conversation, so was quite happy to chat for an hour or so.

One of the topics of conversation, was how the monitor the number of people passing through the park. They have 3 ways, a sensor on the bridge (under the wobbly board), counters on the toilet doors, and measuring the effluent cartridge in the modern container toilet or "weighing the poos" (Donald's words).

Donald also told us to look at a 15 min documentary about the building of the Mount Aspiring huts. Sounded very interesting. See the 1st pic for how to find it.

After saying goodbye to Donald, we had gentle, flat (yes honestly, I think that this was the first flat walk since arriving in NZ) walk back to the car park to catch our shuttle back to Wanaka.

We were feeling quite chuffed with our 3 days in the wilds, when we stopped to pick up three aussie blokes who'd been out for 10! Turns out it was a good thing that we picked them up when the driver drove the (rather clapped out) minibus rather too harshly over the fords and rocks, and punctured the tyre.

The aussies leapt into action, disdainful of the kiwi driver's suggestion that we all lift the minibus up (facilitating the tyre change), and located the jack. On closer inspection, the aussies pointed out that he had also trashed the left rear shock. It was in their words "just sort of dangling".

They got the tyre changed, and asked what driver wanted to do about the shock. His words (I kid you not) were 'let's just go and get some beer!'

So off we drove. And if you think that he took it easy on the rough terrain to save the injured vehicle, you're wrong... There was beer at the end of this journey.

Surprisingly, we made it back without any further issues, and have all coincidentally arrived in the same pub in Wanaka.

After 3 days of dehydrated food, today we're having steak!

A room with a view

Day 1 in Mount Aspiring National Park.

As the start of the tramp is from a car park in the middle of nowhere, we decided to book a shuttle in to the park, leaving the car in Wanaka. We were very pleased with our level of planning to arrange this.

When we arrived, however, we found a large car park with flushing loos, and lots of people.  It turns out that the very beginning of the walk into Aspiring is a very popular day walk, and the weather was so nice that the whole of Wanaka was out.

And who could blame them? The sky was a flawless blue, and it was only a 90 minute climb to great views of the Rob Roy glacier, which was calving ice falls from the lower face with loud cracks, booms and crashes.

Leaving the vicinity of the glacier meant also leaving the hoards of day trippers (shame!), and we walked for 10k along a beautiful river, which if you discounted the vivid green-blue of the river and the ludicrous glacier-clad mountains, could have been a scene from rural England.  It even came complete with cows and sheep.

So we are now at the Aspiring Hut, with a bed under huge picture windows with the view shown in the last photo below.

Note, some of the geological features were recorded specially for Samuel.