Walking in circles

Before setting off on the last of our New Zealand Great Walks, we had a day in Te Anau to rest up, do admin (i.e. emails and blogging) and eat as many bao buns as we could.  We'd discovered a food truck tucked behind the library which made fresh boa buns, aka Chinese steamed dumplings, stuffed with a myriad of fillings, my favourite being soft-shelled crab.  As we had 2 days of freeze-dried food ahead of us, it was vital we consumed as many of these steamed bundles of joy as possible in the little time we had left.

Day 1: beech forest

Unlike all the other Great Walks, the Kepler Track is circular, usually completed over 4 days, unless you're young and fit (which we are

 neither), so we drove to the start/end car park early on Wednesday morning.  We were lucky with another fine day and we headed off along the trail around the shores of Lake Te Anau, passing a few camping beaches, although so riddled with sandflies we couldn't imagine why anyone would camp there! Walking through more gorgeous open beech forest, it felt more similar to UK woodland initially (we are further south here) but as the trail started to steepen, the ground cover changed to fern and took on a distinctly different feel.  Today's trail was basically a direct climb to the first hut, and the trail pretty quickly became a series of switchbacks, on a continual incline.  I was reminded of the Mount Kinabalu climb in Borneo, and our guide Ronnie insisting on the 'slow and steady' pace.  And given that we now had rather larger backpacks, with sleeping bags and 4 days of food and clothing (i..e 3 extra pairs of knickers) I was definitely not in any kind of hurry.  Duncan kept up a faster pace, waiting for me at regular intervals and as the hours passed, we climbed up past the tree line and hanging limestone cliffs until we emerged out of the forest, bumping into the DOC hut ranger, carrying a shovel and

Deep inside the Luxmore cave!

fork, and off to do some trail repair - or so I assume.  45 minutes later and the DOC Luxmore Hut appeared on the hillside.  We grabbed our bunks in the bunkroom (we know the routine now) and headed to the communal kitchen to make a well-deserved cup of tea.  It was around 1pm, so we had all afternoon to kill, happily filled with sitting in the sun and admiring the spectacular view over the mountains and Lake Te Anau below and a cool visit to the limestone caves.  As we descended the steps into the cave, head-torches on, we had to be careful not to knock or touch the stalactites and stalagmites which had formed over 1000s of years. Back at the hut, there was a flurry of excitement as a helicopter came in.  All of the trekkers wondering what sort of emergency was behind it, only to watch a couple of tourists emerge with their guide, who proceeded to make them a warm drink before guiding them back down the trail we'd just hiked up, back to Te Anau. Well, that's another way of doing it!

Pat's nature walk

Pat, the hut ranger, gave a nature walk later in the afternoon, taking us around the plants that survive up in this pretty hostile environment.  With only a foot of topsoil, bitterly cold snowy winters and regularly high winds even in summer, the landscape can dry out in only a day or so without rain, and these plants have all developed fascinating ways of retaining moisture, whether by curling up, having wax coated leaves, or furry ones; all defenses against drying out in what is actually an incredibly wet climate.  Pat is an interesting character; tiny, goblin like with sparkling blue eyes and amazing knowledge of the natural landscape. He's also got a wry sense of humour and the evening ranger's talk (every ranger does one in every hut) has us all giggling. It was forecast to rain the following afternoon so Pat advised us to get going early enough to get along the ridge and back below the tree line before 2pm.  So off to bed, and it wasn't even dark yet (although to be fair, it doesn't get dark until about 10 o'clock here).

Huts views don't get much better then this. 

I was awake by 5am and up at 6 the following morning.  Porridge cooked and in our stomachs, we were back on the trail by 8, but so was everyone else.  So we weren't particularly ahead of the game. 

Communing with keas on Luxmore Summit

We had another hour's climb, up to Luxmore Summit, which gave us the most incredible views over the Forest Burn and Jackson Peak ranges, as well as over Lake Te Anau. As many of the trekkers climbed the short off-shoot to Luxmore Summit, we were joined by a group of 4 kea, the large curious wild parrot who love to approach humans and interact.  They are highly intelligent and known to unzip backpack zips, open door handles and trick people into abandoning their muesli bars and snacks so they can nick them.  Kea fun over, we followed the trail up to the ridge and then along the backbone of the range for a good few hours - you can imagine the views - 360 degrees of snowy peaks, hanging valleys and deep lakes.  We stopped briefly at the 2 emergency shelters (no emergency, just a handful of trail mix or an orange) until finally the trail took a downward slant.  As we neared the tree line, we took in our final 'high' views, knowing these are likely to be the last for us on this trip.

The track along the ridge...

Back into the beech forests, lush green with ferns, moss and lichens on every surface.  By this time I was pretty knackered, but 1000m of downward path lay between me and the hut, and my knees were going to have to cope. And cope they did.  Just.  I hobbled into the Iris Burn hut, with Duncan, around 1.30pm, although it felt like 5pm to me!  nothing that a restorative cup of tea and a quick cold dip in the river couldn't fix.  Did wonders for the armpits too.

Iris Burn hut was in a beautiful setting, on a flat, looking towards Spire Peak and only a short walk to a lovely waterfall.  The one, overriding negative was the sandflies.  They were EVERYWHERE, even biting any exposed flesh when you sat on the toilet.  The hut ranger even dubbed himself 'Lord of the Sandflies'.  It was untenable to be outdoors for more than a minute or so at a time, so we busied ourselves cooking dinner in the kitchen and playing cards with other trekkers.  When I'd mentioned the freeze-dried food earlier in this post, on this trek Duncan and I had actually done a bit better than that.  We'd learned from earlier treks that freeze-dried = not very nice, and had lugged couscous, oil, onions, mushrooms, peppers and stock cubes up the mountains . Cooking also keeps you busy in the afternoon hours, and there's quite a bit of food envy/one-up-man-ship amongst the seasoned trekkers, so we were keen to get into that group.  I think we successfully made it, but we were still impressed with those who brought bacon and a cafetiere with them.

The beauty of the beech...

'Skinny dip' Lake.  The other photos are X-rated ;-)

Day 3 of the trek took us through more beautiful beech forest filled with the song of hundreds of birds. Some of the time the friendly riflemans and fantails would join us on the track, or close branches, flirting with us and coming within a meter or so to say hello.  We had left the hut late this morning, and have also learnt that it pays to arrive relatively early, in order to secure a bottom bunk, so we kept up quite a pace, passing many of the earlier trekkers. Despite a severe slow down from yours truly on the last hour, we reached Moturua Hut, on the shores of Lake Manapouri in the early afternoon.  With a beautiful beach, we couldn't resist a skinny dip (well out of view of the other hut residents!) to clean off after 3 days hiking.  Moturua Hut's ranger, Phil, originally from Devon, gave us a fascinating insight into the history of how Lakes Te Anau and Manopouri, 2 of the largest freshwater lakes in New Zealand, were under severe threat of destruction from hydroelectric power stations, and how they were saved by the local populations and eventually put under protection.  And thank goodness they were - they are mighty, mighty, lakes.

Swingbridges, rivers and more beech forest!

Our final day's hike was, on paper, an easy one.  Pretty flat, through beech forest and wetland, and then following the Waiau River terrace.  It was a 4-5.5 hour walk, and despite me being on my last legs, we did manage it in 4.  You can tell from the photo, taken when we finally got back to the car, just how tired I was.  But it was all worth it.  In fact I think the Kepler Track is probably my favourite of all those we've done.  The variety each day, and the views, were something else. Another spectacular trip into New Zealand's extraordinary wilderness.

Having stumbled back to the car, the rains started. And didn't stop.  How lucky were we?! Another bao bun in Te Anau, and we got back on the road.  Next stop: Arrowtown.  And a real bed.

We did it! Check out how exhausted I look!!