Milford Track!!!

The Milford Track, the most popular hike in New Zealand. To start the track we had to take a boat across Lake Te Anau, and to get to the boat we took a bus from Te Anau.  The bus didn't leave until 1 pm, so we spent the morning preparing, buying last minute things, watching the film Shadowland at Fiordland Cinema, eating amazing pies for lunch from Miles Better Pies, a must have if you are ever in the area.  Andy had creamy chicken and I had vegetable and they were excellent.  We also split an apple pie for dessert.

The bus and the boat took about an hour and a half and by 2:30 we were on the trail.  The first day the hike is only an hour and a half (depending on how many picture breaks you take) and was a pleasant flat walk through the woods.

The warden of the first hut was Ross, a 6 foot 7 inch giant from Central Otago.  Dinner was a freeze dried backpackers meal and then off to bed.

In the morning we were warned not to leave until Ross gave us the okay.  It had rained a lot in the night and there was some chance of rivers flooding and avalanche.  At 9, Ross lead us down the trail for a couple hours while he waited to hear back from the avalanche engineers in the helicopter surveying the avalanche risk.  At noon, Ross gave us the okay to continue on to the next hut without him.

Catie, the warden at the next hut met everyone along the trail to make sure we were all getting on okay.  The trail was considerably more wet and there were at least two occasions where we had to walk through streams, soaking our shoes.  The last hour of the trail finally started heading up the mountain we were going to have to climb over the next day.  We arrived at the hut just in time for the rain to really open up and start pouring.  There were 25 people staying in the hut the second night and we spent most of the night getting to know half of them.

One of the Aussies told his story about sky diving naked and one of the Kiwis told his story of buggy jumping naked.  Catie, the warden, was energetic and really funny.  She imitated the sound of a female kiwi, which was hilarious (click here to hear what a female kiwi sounds like, then imagine a full grown woman making this noise).  It was a great group of people to be around.

We were warned that we will probably have to be helicoptered up to the top of the pass due to avalanche risk in the morning, but we would get the details in the morning.

Looking for kiwi on the second night (sadly, we found none)