Kepler day 4 - The Great Walk Out

Well we made it. About 80km and a mile up and down, but it was a lot of fun, and we never reached the emotional lows of the 1st day of the Cass-Lagoon Saddle tramp.

There must be something about the water in Lake Manapouri that we were drinking, as even though there was no alcohol, the evening card games of 'shithead' played until the wee hours (well 10pm ... we had early starts) caused major hilarity. We suspect the people who were already trying to sleep weren't enjoying it quite so much... Maybe this is the origin of the name.

A number of people who do the Kepler, skip the final day, and instead add 2 hours to day 3, and arrange a pickup from an early exit point. We now understand why. Day 4, was pretty much like day 3, but not as pretty, and more full of 'DayWalkers'. These are not vampire hunters, but people on our track carrying less than 10 kilos and smelling nice.

Whilst each day of the tramp has presented it's challenges, and overall, it has been pretty tiring, each day's tramp was somewhat easier than we were expecting, and as a consequence, we have been arriving at the huts by 2 at the latest. This has introduced a problem that we didn't expect.. A lack of tea bags! For weight reasons, we rationed our quota, but didn't expect to be sat around all afternoon.

That said, we still ended up bringing one back... Perhaps we didn't want to be in the unfortunate state of having 'no tea'.

This will be remedied for future tramps.

Next stop.. The pub!

Kepler day 3 - The Great Woodland Amble

The little bunk room worked a treat with a much better night's sleep for us.

We awoke to rain though, Fiordland rain! We've pointed out previously that we've had very good luck with the weather, but it looked to have run out. So we set off in full waterproofs, relieved that we hadn't carried them over the Kepler mountains for nothing.

Fortunately, the rain soon eased off, and we were walking through a steaming jungle, full of ferns, not-beech trees and lancewoods (more on these later).

One thing to get out of the way before going any further is that Hannah won the Tree Fern game (the rules of which will be left as an exercise to the reader).

The walk continued through the jungle, and the humidity sky-rocketed,and it got hotter and hotter. After a while we started hallucinating strange purple mushrooms. We've included a photo for you so you can see what they looked like.

We made it to the hut by late-lunchtime, and after a refreshing cup of tea, hung out on the beach of Lake Manapouri in the blazing sunshine, taking a dip in the water, which was refreshing for several seconds, before being best described as rather nippy. We're now hiding from the sandflys in the bunk room waiting for our (only) clothes to dry (lack or forethought there).

So, the lancewoods. These are a funky tree that changes its shape completely after a few years. It starts out being long and whippy with spiney downward pointing leaves, and then after the trees mature, start growing bushy leaves in a pompom on top, and the spiney leaves drop off.

We first heard about them on the journey back from Doubtful Sound. A colleague of our guide was getting a lift back, and she was like 'Hey Keith, Did you tell these guys about the funky lancewood in Manapouri", and he says "no", and she's like "Whaaaaaaat?" (imagine a high pitched kiwi accent that's a bit over-enthusiastic here) "How could you not tell them about this tree? This tree is AWESOME!, like usually these trees are like This Big" (makes a circle with thumb and forefinger) "but this one is like big enough to like hug, and it must be way old... " and so on.

Anyway, we saw loads of them today, including a few that had juvenile leaves at the bottom, and a pompom forming on the top. Apparently the first botanists to catalogue them thought that they were different species. They were designed to evade the Moa, so we're not sure when they're going to notice it's extinct and not trying to eat them anymore...

Kepler day 2 - The Great Ridge Walk

The decision to go the extra mile yesterday paid off, as Luxmore summit was shrouded in mist this morning. The warden encouraged everyone to get out early, as the weather was set to get worse over the day.

So we were on the hill by 8, getting blown around by some gusty winds. Luckily the weather pretty much held off, and we were treated to some truly stunning views, looking into the heart of Fiordland.

As we were on the final part of the ridge, the weather decided to get mean. We had planned to stop for an early lunch, but the increasingly threatening weather caused Hannah to insist that we had to get off the mountain (!). So the long long decent began. Done at speed in true Hannah fashion.

The increasingly switchbacked nature of the path meant that we spent the last 1/2 hour with the hut less than 200m away. But we finally rounded the last corner, and saw the hut.  We made it to the hut 3rd of 50, which meant that we had our pick of the bunks. We went for small and dingy (=quiet), rather than light and airy and lots of bunks.

After a well deserved lunch, we went out in search of the nearby waterfall, which was pretty spectacular! (difficult to judge scale, but it is about 40ft)

Final photo is the view from the Hut.

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!