The Milford Track

Having booked to walk the Milford Track at the beggining of July in St. Petersburg when I had just started travelling, it has been something I had been looking forward to for a while, and it certainly lived up to my expectations. The track is one of New Zealands great walks, a group of about 10 multi-day walks across the country and is supposed to be one of the best walks in the world. It is so popular that access has been restricted to 40 people a day and it gets booked up as soon as the bookings open on 1st July.

After a night in Te Anau I had to go on another short bus journey and then get a boat accross the lake to the start of the track, as there is no where to access it by road. The first day of the walk is just a short walk through the forest to the 1st hut so you arrive early afternoon. You have to stay in the designated huts, but they were all very nice and meant that there was a bit less to carry as mattresses and gas stoves were provided. Spent the evening getting to know the other people on the walk, a strange mix of people from all over the world although the majority were from Oz and NZ.

The second day of the walk was a very nice walk along the Clinton Valley. A steep sided valley surronded by snow-capped mountains with impressive waterfalls of melted snow running down into the valley. The area is famous for the amount of rain it gets, it rains about 300 days a year and often gets more rain in a day than most places in NZ get in a year. But it looked as though I was going to be lucky as it was an amazing sunny day which was perfect for the walk. Arrived at the second hut quite early in the afternoon, so to take advantage of the great weather I left my bag and continued up the track to do the 1st part of the next days walk. This was a steep climb up to the Mackinnon pass, the highest point of the walk. From the top there were spectacular views of the surrounding peaks and down into the Arthur Valley where the walk continued. To make the most of the good weather I sat at the top for a while watching avalanches on the surrounding hills as the hot weather was causing a lot of the snow to melt.

When I started walking on the 3rd day the cloud was low in the valley, so the walk up the pass was all in the clouds and could see very little from the top, so the extra walk on the day before had prooved to be worthwhile. Although, at times the clouds cleared so we above them and this gave us spectacular glimpses of the surrounding peaks. The walk down into the next valley was quite steep as the main track was closed due to the avalanche risk. But as we descended the clouds lifted and it became another very sunny day. Before reaching the next hut, we went on a short side trip to the Sutherland falls, the 5th tallest waterfall in the world. Because of all the snow melt the strength of the water was incredible and made a very dramatic scene. Even at quite a distance from it, the spray of the water provided a very refreshing shower. From there it was another couple of hours walk to the last hut. After arriving here, I did try to go for a swim in the river, but to say the least it was a bit cold so quickly gave up on that idea after my feet rapidly went numb.

The last day of the walk was along the valley through the forest. Again this was very nice and even saw a kiwi, which is quite rare as they are suppossed to be nocturnal. As we got to Milford Sound the weather was starting to change as the cloud came down but we were very lucky and managed to complete the walk without any rain. From the end of the walk it was a short boat trip across the fiord to the village of Milford Sound. Its only a small place, but had a nice hostel and a pub which provided a nice dinner and a few pints,which was a welcome change from dehydrated camping food.