Today was the beginning of our 3 (or 4) day backpacking trip at the Kepler Track in Fiordland National Park. Since the track was a loop that began and ended in Te Anau, we just had a quick drive to get to the entrance. Here is a brief overview of the Kepler Track.
First we had to walk from Te Anau to the Control Gates, which is the daunting name of the beginning and end of the hike. That was an easy walk that took less than an hour. Next we had another fairly flat walk through a nice, green tree canopy to Brod Bay where we stopped for lunch. I'm guessing it took a little over an our. After lunch we hiked from Brod Bay to Luxmore Hut. It was all uphill, but the grade was nowhere near as steep as the hike to Mueller Hut on the Mt. Cook trip. It wasn't easy, but I felt pretty fit and didn't have any trouble. The scenery on the climb was pretty much all forest, which was nice but a bit monotonous. Here are a couple pictures on that segment.
This is a nice view of Te Anau.
Here is Philip next to a big uprooted tree (for reference, he's 6'5" or something like that).
There were also some nice limestone bluffs.
When we made it up the climb, it was an easy walk to Luxmore Hut out of the bush with spectacular views of Te Anau and the lake. We made it to the hut in a little under 3 hours from Brod Bay. Here are a couple of the magnificent views.
Luxmore Hut was really nice. It slept 55 people and had a nice kitchen area and great views. After unpacking our gear, we took a short walk to check out Luxmore Cave.
This is a great view of the sunset from Luxmore Hut.
On the morning of day 2, we decided to just hang out at the hut until we finished lunch and then set off for Iris Burn Hut, where we would camp for the night. We witnessed some really cool views this morning. We were at an elevation of around 1000 meters, but we were able to look down on the clouds above the lake. It was an awesome sight.
While I was on the deck, a Kea (alpine parrot) landed near me, and I was able to snap some photos of the bird with the clouds in the background. I thought this made for some really spectacular pictures. Have a look.
In this next one, a wind has pushed some of the clouds toward the hut. This actually happened several times. First you would be able to look across the sky and down on the clouds. Then a wind would disrupt the clouds so that you could not see across the sky at all. It was interesting.
After lunch we left Luxmore Hut and hiked to the campsite at Iris Burn Hut. The hike was incredible. Basically we went uphill from the 1000 meter Luxmore Hut along mountain ridges or sidling mountains. We essentially went uphill, then downhill, then uphill to about 1500 meter elevation, then downhill to Iris Burn. The views were just amazing. We could see for miles in all directions since we were walking along a mountain ridge much of the time. There were beautiful mountains and the wonderful Lake Te Anau. Here are a few photos.
The hike took us about 4 hours, which was quite a bit faster than the 5-6 hour estimate from the Kepler Track information. I guess we could be considered decent hikers now. We set up camp at Iris Burn, and we quickly realized that the sand flies were going to be really annoying. We initially had planned to camp on the trail tomorrow and then walk out on day 4, but we decided to just finish the whole thing tomorrow and camp back at the holiday park in Te Anau to evade the sand flies. We had to spend a little extra money, but I think it was worth it.
Day 3 was an epic day of hiking. We got up early, had breakfast, packed up, and left just before 9 am. We didn't get back to town until about 5:30 pm. We hiked pretty much the entire time except stopping for a 30 minute lunch and some short breaks. It was pretty much all flat or very mild uphill or downhill, but we covered a very impressive distance. Overall we hike around 35.7 kilometers, which is about 23 miles (I think). While it was mostly flat, hiking 23 miles with a heavy pack in one day is pretty good in my opinion. Here are some of the pictures of the scenery.
Everybody was pretty tired once we finally finished.
Then we went into town for some ice cream and set up camp. Overall the Kepler Track was a great hike.
1 comment:
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