Kepler Track

Kepler Track is a backpacking trail south of Milford Sound in fiordland.  It’s one of New Zealand’s Great Walks and very deserving of this title!  It is a 61km loop that begins just outside of Te Anau and has three huts that you can stay in. The huts are spaced out so that you hike approximately 15km each day.  The huts were a bit pricey for our liking so we decided to camp instead.  The campgrounds are not as nicely spread out – the first at 5.6K, the second at about 31K and then the third is just 20-30 minutes off the track at about 47K.

The start of the Kepler Track - here we go!

We started the walk in the late afternoon and hiked to the first campground called Brod Bay and had a nice dinner.  It was easy walking – flat terrain through a rainforest. The campground was gorgeous, situated on a lake.

The first campground!

The next day was our big day.  We had about 25km to get to the next campground and had about 1500m of elevation to ascend and 900m to descend.  Almost immediately, the climbing started and continued until we popped out above the tree-line with amazing views!  

The views!!

A good portion of the day was part of an alpine crossing above the tree-line. We had lunch on the deck of the first hut (Luxmore Hut) and did a short walk to the Luxmore Cave.  Kyle ventured into the cave and took some photos.

Lunch time

Luxmore Cave Entrance

From inside the cave

After lunch, we continued to climb and climb until we reach Mount Luxmore. We did a quick detour to the summit before continuing on.

Summit of Mount Luxmore

We went up and down across a ridge and had some seriously fantastic views of lakes and mountains all around.  When we finally reached the point where we started to descend, we were definitely ready.  We descended for a long time, back into the trees and rainforest-type woods.  Finally, we emerged at the Iris Burn Hut and campground where we put our feet up before a few minutes before setting up the tent or thinking about dinner.  We also did a bit of a sponge-bath rinse in a very chilly river just a few hundred meters away from the campground. 

Finally starting to descend

The next morning we were discussing our plan for the day. After speaking with the Camp Warden the previous evening, we knew that rain was expected the following day and that the next campground was likely going to be full with trampers and hunters.  We decided that we were just going to finish off the circuit that day.  Luckily we got a bright and early start (leaving the campground at 10:30…hahaha) and marched on.  The walking was very easy with a gentle decline or flat for most of the day.  We walked and walked and walked and walked.  And then we walked some more.  At about 22km is Rainbow Reach, an access point that we could catch a shuttle or hitchhike back to our car.  We had a rest stop there and I very seriously considered wandering across the bridge and catching a lift but in the end, we decided to finish walking to the car.  At the end of the day we had walked 32K and were ready to be done!!

Lake Manapouri for a lunch stop

We sat in the carpark and ate an entire bag of Doritos before doing much of anything.  A great reward!!

The Kepler Track was amazing – especially the second day.  Unbelievable views!! 

Overall rating: Top-notch!!!

Milford Sound

There isn’t much to say about Milford Sound – the pictures speak for themselves!  We did a morning boat cruise out to the mouth of the sound and back on a nice sunny day!

Wanaka and Queenstown - Adrenaline Time!

What word could describe Wanaka and Queenstown? Fun!

Wanaka is an awesome town with a very chill atmosphere.  It’s situated in the mountains and would be similar to Canmore.  Queenstown is like Banff – tourist central!  Both were great spots for us to spend time in!

Wanaka was action-packed. Since it was raining on our first morning in Wanaka, we headed to the Wanaka pool for a swim before hitting up the Wanaka brewery for a tour in the afternoon. After that we spent some time at the Wanaka library charging iPhones/computers and downloading photos.  We had an early dinner at Red Star – a local burger joint with delicious and massive burgers.  In the evening, we went to Cinema Paradiso to see J. Edgar.  Definitely not your average theatre!  All seats are couches or comfy arm chairs and there is a break in the middle of the movie to have dinner or a snack of homemade cookies and ice cream.

The view from our campground near Wanaka. Snow White was our picnic table...

Is this crazy or what?? I found this rock on my way back from the ladies room at our campground.

Kyle admiring the recent addition to his jacket, courtesy of a bird. 

The next day, we went paragliding at Treble Cone. This was totally amazing!  I don’t really know how to describe it other than peaceful.  Just like floating.  Kyle had his GoPro camera as well as the company’s GoPro camera so there are some great shots!  Unfortunately the battery in the camera I had died just after Kyle took off.  It was an amazing experience!!

This was the view before we stepped off land and into the air!

This was what I thought of paragliding!!!  An enthusiastic thumbs up!

In Queenstown, we went for a beautiful run around the lake that Queenstown is situated around before going for a quick swim.  After that, we dressed ourselves up in wetsuits, flippers and helmets, and went whitewater surfing down Class I, II, II and IV rapids.  I don’t really know how to describe this – it seemed like everything was going to end up in chaos yet somehow we’d all come out on the other side of the rapids.  There was a “standing wave” at about the halfway point and we all had the opportunity to try to surf it.  Kyle succeeded on his second attempt and surfed for quite a while!  It was totally crazy to watch the guides surf this wave…they were phenomenal!  They could sit and sometimes even stand up on their boards in the wave. Here are a couple of photos but we didn't get many so use your imagination...

People were bungy jumping off this bridge as we were going under!

A great time!!  After the whitewater surfing, we wandered around Queenstown watching all of the crazies on St. Patrick’s Day.

Farewell Spit, Wesport to Greymouth Drive, Frans Josef & Fox Glaciers

After Able Tasman, we drove to Takaka where we found a hostel and settled down for the night - it was nice to have a warm, dry place to get ourselves back in action.  The next day was beautiful and we set off to go see the Farewell Spit which is the northwest tip of the south island.  It's a 30km sandspit that just out into the ocean - quite interesting (if you recall we could see this spit at one point during our Able Tasman trip).  We just went to the base of the spit and looked out upon it - didn't acutally go out onto it.  They have overpriced tours if you want to go out onto the spit but it's pretty expensive and in my opinion, not worth it (I suppose that's not fair for me to say considering I didn't do it...  oh well - saying it nonetheless.  I think it was $100 to drive out the 30km spit private road.)  We did see some cool Black Swans there though - and a hedgehog... not sure why Sega had a game called Sonic the Hedgehog - from what I observed, Hedgehogs are one of the slowest creatures on earth, surpassed solely by the snail (Sonic the Snail - it's got a ring to it).  I also eagerly looked for Natalie Portman but alas, she was nowhere to be seen - bummer.

From the Farewell Spit we backtracked a bit and then headed down to Westport where we spent the night. The next day we drove from Westport to Greymouth - this route is said to be one of the top 10 drives in the world (Lonley Planet).  It was pretty impressive - for the most part you are along the coast and the GIANT waves are crashing into the bays below you.  Up to this point I had not seen any waves that came close to rivaling the size of the waves I had seen in Kauai for Ty & Nat's wedding last April.  These waves were as big or bigger - F'ing huge... difficult to tell from the shore but I'm guessing 15 feet.  Apparently this coast is one of top spots to surf in NZ - I can see why.  The problem is that the water is pretty chilly so you need a killer wetsuit.  Anyways, the drive lived up to the hype and was super scenic.  The "Pancake Rocks" is a neat pit-stop mid-way which shows off some fancy geological formations (I won't speculate what these are and will wait for the geologists to comment based on some pictures below).  It's apprently a big geological mystery though.  These were super cool though and well worth the walk-about.  The water is basically carving away pieces of the land and you end up with these pillars and caves/tunnels where water crashes in and as the giant waves come pounding in.  I have an amazing video showing how the water come crashing into the formation and then when the waves are really big water comes spraying out these vertical holes like geysers... you can see some of the spray in the photos below but the video will have to wait.

We hit Greymouth and tried to do a brewry tour at Monteith's Brewing Company however they were doing a major reno and it was closed - doh.  Instead we hit up McDonalds for an hour or so to catch up on internet and get some grease into our system - this is a regular occurrence for us as few places offer free intenet and good old McD's is our trusty source.

After Greymouth we headed towards Wanaka and hit up a couple glaciers on the way - Frans Josef and Fox Glaciers... pretty neat - see photos below!

Oh yeah, we swam in Westport at their pool - first time swimming (I hit the ocean for a brief period on Able Tasman but it was pretty chilly).  The pool was super cheap and we've now realized this is the best way for us to get a nice warm shower, and a workout.  So now we keep camping in these dirt cheap primitive campgrounds and then hitting up the local pools - score for us.  We are getting into this whole cheap-o budget traveling thing...

Ok - till next time... peace out.
Kyle