Kepler, day 1

Finally, the day came for us to start the Kepler Great Walk!  The Kepler is a 4 day, 60km walk through forest and mountains, reaching an elevation of 1472m above sea level.  We started around noon, and finished the first day around 5 or so.

Here we are, at the starting point, ready to go!

So excited!

Our first suspension bridge!

Almost across!

Lovely views.

Part of the track went through the marshes, though there were nice platforms and bridges the whole way, never got my shoe wet once!

More bogs.

Interesting plants.

End of day 1 - Moturau hut.  Because the spots in the huts were mostly filled up, we had to do the track in reverse, starting with the last hut first.  It's a loop so it's not a big deal, the way up is just a bit steeper this way, but same total elevation either way.

Here's the beautiful Lake Manapouri by the hut.

The beach and hut were infested with sand flies.  They are the worst thing about New Zealand, no doubt about it.  They are worse than mosquitoes.  Their bites last twice as long and are itchier, plus they are smaller and harder to kill.  And they ruin pictures!  I can't say enough about how much we loathe them.

Sunset our first night (I ran out onto the deck to take this photo, risking certain death by sandfly attacks).

LOTR Dead Marshes, near Manapouri

We still had a day or two to kill before the Kepler track, so we drove down to the Lord of the Rings filming location where they shot the dead marshes scenes.  The first two pictures below are mine, the bottom two are screen shots.  They look much different without all the computer graphics added in!

Milford Sound drive

The next morning after our Milford Sound cruise it was raining, as can be expected of the region.  The silver lining to rain is that the whole valley turns into thousands of waterfalls a few hours after the rain starts.  So, we decided to do the drive again.

One of the lookouts had a wet, but nevertheless regal, Kea.  These are the birds that are known mainly for their destructive powers - they love shiny things and have been known to take apart whole cars in parking lots.  They also love windshield wipers, rubber seals, and human food.

This one was quite friendly - though he kept falling off the railing!

You can see the curiosity and mischief in his eyes.

Our trusty campervan patiently awaits our return.

Notice the waterfalls on the rock face.

The one lane tunnel to Milford Sound.

Our campsite for the night - Fiordland Great Views Holiday Park.  We were greated by a complete rainbow!

Milford Sound

As we continued north, our next stop was the famous Milford Sound, which is actually not a sound at all, we learned, but a fiord.  A sound is made by a river, and a fiord by a glacier.  Therefore, the Milford Sound, located in Fiordland, should be the Milford Fiord.  But anyway, it is a spectacular bay-like area.  There are many fiords in Fiordland, but this one is the most popular.  Not sure exactly why - but there are many boat companies that do cruises, helicopter and seaplane flights, and kayak rentals are available.  And more, I'm sure.  Anyway, I really wanted to take a boat ride on the sacraficial fiord, as my dad had highly recommended it from his previous trip to NZ.  It was well worth the cash!  We arrived to the area late in the day, but decided to catch the last cruise of the day, as the weather was spectacular, and this part of the country is known for rain, rain, rain.  It rains about 200 days out of the year here.

On the way up we had picked up another hitchhiker - this time a Belgian (from the French side) named Fela.  He was also around 18 or so.  Nice kid, we dropped him off a little while later at a campground.  He planned to do the cruise early the next day.

This was our vessel, the Lady Bowen.

Here are the Lady Bowen Falls, named by Mr. Bowen, who named them after his wife because he said they are as beautiful as she was.  I told Caryl if he ever names a natural feature after me, it better be cooler than this - at least an island or river or something.

Super high cliff.

More waterfalls!

They promised us seals and dolphins and penguins.  We saw one rock with seals.

Rainbow!

Helicopter filming the boat in the rainbow - best to make promotional materials while the weather holds up!

Stunning!

Lovely!

Lady Bowen Falls on the way back.

Wekas enjoying the tourist-frequented picnic area.

Baby weka.  We've seen these around and didn't know what they were.  Apparently they are wekas, a native bird species.  We'd been calling them forest chickens - apparently their colloquial name is a wood hen.  We were close...

On the way back, we picked up another hitchhiker!  This one was a 24 year old Japanese guy named Taku.  He was great!  It was late in the day, so we ended up staying at the same (free) campsite, bonding over a meal of lamb sausages.  He was very interesting - he had hiked all of the south island, from Picton to Bluff.  It had taken him about 2.5 months, and now he was exploring the rest of the island by hitchhiking.  He was very thin - I asked if he had lost weight during his hike, but he assured me he has always been this thin.  I wish I had taken a picture of us together, it was a great evening.  Guess I'll just have to remember it!  I asked what he ate while hiking, and he shared he had eaten 6 kilos of peanut butter during those months!  And for dinner every day he had ramen noodles with some mashed potato powder mixed in - which was also his dinner with us.  He said his favorite food was "meat!" We were more than happy to share our sausages, as we had gotten more than enough and couldn't keep leftovers well in our cooler anyway.  We miss you Taku!

Nature Walk in Manapouri

The next day after our Green Lake hike we only did one hike - a 15 minute "nature walk" through nearby hay fields.  It was also lovely, mainly because there was no mud!

Green Lake Track on Lake Monowai

New Zealand has 9 hikes known as the Great Walks, multi-day hikes designed for tourists that showcase the beauty of the country.  We signed up for the Kepler Great Walk in the south-west of New Zealand.  These Great Walks are immensely popular, so we had to book the accommodation in advance, and still had trouble finding spots in the huts.  The huts are like backpacker dorms with shared bathrooms and bunk beds, only they're the only thing around, unless you have your own tent of course.  So, we had booked the Kepler, but had a few days in Fiordland before the hike.  We decided to practice our overnight hiking and chose to do the Green Lake Track.  We read it was a two day hike, 6 hours each way, well marked, with a (green) lake at the top.  Sounded like an easy practice trip, seeing as how the Kepler was 4 days.  Little did we know...

Here we are, naive, happy to be starting our journey.

Beautiful mushrooms dotted the forest floor.

The trail looked great!  I had read online that the first hour was "deceptively easy", but we paid this no mind.

Wood Robins were curious about our presence - they tried to eat our shoelaces, I guess because they look like worms!  New Zealand was a predator free island before people came and ruined everything, therefore many of the bird species never learned to be afraid.  This little guy displayed only curiosity and hunger.

A little further on - lovely bridged path over slightly wet ground.

Another curious Wood Robin guiding us along.

A stream crossing - the path gets tricker, but not that bad...

Yet another friend!

After the first hour and a half the going got hard.  The path was always well marked, except where landslides had taken out whole sections of the path.  We only got lost once, for about 15 minutes.

Felled trees also made the process difficult.

The track was partly so tricky because it had rained a whole lot the night before, and in many places the road had turned to mud.  Bridge platforms were only present for the first few kilometers.  As you can see by my shoes and socks, our feet were quickly soaked and covered with mud.  Oh, and the track was almost entirely uphill.

The stream crossings also got crazy - at times we had to hang on to tree branches, cross over logs, hop on partly submerged rocks.

On top of it all, the fog rolled in, making it harder to see trail markers.

But it looked so cool!

The last bit of the track went through grasses.  This part was absolutely beautiful - but unfortunately it had turned into a swamp, and the fog made the trail markers very hard to locate.  I did not take any pictures as it was getting dark and we were rushing to get to the hut.

After 9 grueling hours, we arrived at the Green Lake hut.  Needless to say, I was ecstatic!!!

Fog rolling in - Caryl soaked his aching feet and knees in the freezing water.

The magical hut.  It has space for 12, but we shared it with only 3 other people, an older couple from Long Island, of all places, and a Frenchman named David.  The couple had come in on a different, shorter track, but they were also beat.  David was a pro - he had passed us on the way up.  He had done the track in only 4 hours, and had started to worry about us.  He was in New Zealand on extended holiday, writing a book about nature and hiking I believe.  He had proper hiking boots and special pants, and a better physique that made it all easier.  Nevertheless, I was proud of us for making it to the top.  Not that we had much choice, really, I wasn't about to head back in the dark.

View from the hut the next morning.

The stunning, swampy area, looking very different without the fog.

Spectacular views of Lake Monowai.

The only picture we took of the "path".  This was not the worst part.

The worst part was knee deep mud in the higher elevations, note my pants and Caryl's left sock.

We made it back!  Upon reflection, the Green Lake hike was awesome and amazing, and I'm so glad we did it!  I would recommend it, and might even do it again (though I may wait for a day with less rain).