Milford Sound
Trip Start
Sep 02, 2007
1
159
326
Trip End
May 13, 2009
Milford Sound,
South Island,
New Zealand
Monday, May 26, 2008
Now in Winter there are very few people that do it but there is a group of 8 Kiwis, a Polish couple and a German guy and the 3 of us. We set off at 8am from Te Anau and hopped into a transport for an hour and then onto a boat for a 2.5hour cruise down the fjords to the start of the treck. The clouds are bad and the weather looks diabolical but we are going to make the best of the situation!
We started the treck being told we would defiunatly be walking in darkness - there was no question. We arived 1.5 hours before it got dark at the 1st nights sleeping hut (another example of poor information we recieved from DOC offices). The walk its self was nice, the green moss gorowing up every tree, rock, stones - everything is covered and I think it looked quite increadible. Other than this the mountains were obscured with the cloud which is a big shame. The Polish couple are very nice and I spent a fair bit of the walk with them to break a little bit of time from the boys - ive literally spent every second of every day with Ed with no serious problems but a few hours break can only be good!
The Huts are pretty cool and well equiped in the summer. In the winter not so much but they were plenty adequate. We all mingled in with the other treckers and had a nice evening but simillar to my trecks in Nepal the evenings are SO long due to the sun setting so early you still end up going to bed at about 8.30pm! Its not too bad though because it sets you up nicely for the tiring day ahead.
Eds Pics of Milford
We had pasta and a packet sauce which stuck to the pan hurrendously, the Polish guy started a fire though which made me a little less pissed off about spending the next hour cleaning the pan with cold cold water.We had to go to sleep as it got too cold but once in my sleeping abg from Bolivia it was all good and I slept like a baby till 8am - we start trecking day 2 at 9am.
On day 2 it was the high pass. Day one went up to 600m, day 2 up to 1,300m and down again to 300m and day 3 is pretty flat. The altitude is not abd and from the hut at night one there is no snow but after 2 hours we were all walking through snow up to our thighs and it was hard going. There were footsteps to walk in so it wasnt too bad but it was maybe the hardest day of walking I have ever donw. My feet were wet and so absolutly freezing as were my gloves from snowball fights. There was a hut at the top of the pass which everyone dived in for a hot drink and then we trecked on to the summit. Shortly after the summit which we could see nothing but snow and roaming thick cloud the valley before us opend up and the mountains were out of this world - so stunning with the snow and sun - it was the happiest ive felt in a long time as I was really suffering before. The sun warmed our bones and we just stood in awe at the most amazing mountains - truly great.
We walked down in the sunshine and it was a very pleasent afternoon of walking. We walked down the valley but it was so early when we got back we had a fair bit of time to kill again.
Eds Pics of Milford
We had pasta again (while it was light) and rather than sit up and socialise I went to bed - the day really took it out of me and I wa SO happy to be tucked up in my sleeping bag I didnt really notice the -5oC tempreatures outside - even though my sleeping bag is only designed for +10oC!While I was cooking there was this Hen around. It eats scrapps and is a pest but they are big - bigger than chickens and they really like my food. Before on the west coast I had one tucking into my Risotto, now this one was tuckking into my Oatmeal - they really do like my cooking :-)
Day 3 was easy but beautiful. Loads and Loads of waterfalls en route to clear blue crystal waters and it was really nice viewing. The track was so easy though it was a little boring and we were in danged of finishing the treck 4 hours before the boat was going to turn up! So we took a detour to the largest waterfall in NZ. It was 1.5 hours each was but really nice and well worth it. I got a storm on on the way back and finished walking an hour before everyone else and got to the end of the treck - Sandfly point. And yes - there were millions of em! I was wearing a lot of cloths though and even the millions of sandflys couldnt spoil the mountanous views, clear waters and mirror like reflections you will see in my pics when I actually get time to put them on here.
The boat arived late and we were very cold waiting for it but we all got picked up in a speed boat which took us to the van and then back to Te Anau. We dropped off all the equipment and at 7pm, very cold and tired but happy - headded back up to Queenstown.
