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A light hearted account of one of the Great Walks of the South Island of New Zealand. In April '09 three of us set out to explore what it meant to be Freedom Walkers in Fiordland. Includes handy tips for the beginner tramper.
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In story terms, New Zealand’s Milford
Track is beautifully structured in four acts.
In scenic terms, it won’t fit in the camera.
As far as wilderness experiences go,
keep your towel dry!
The Milford TrackA Fairy Storyphotos and words by Victoria Osborne
additional photos by Felix Millar
�
Once upon a time... we started planning for our April ‘09 trip.
We’re Australian, and after reading the solemn safety advice
described by the New Zealand Department of Conservation
(DOC) on their excellent web site (www.doc.govt.nz), we decided
we didn’t want to be known as the dumb Australian tourists who
had to get air lifted off the track because of a twisted ankle.
Prevention. Who to turn to? Who could help us? We joined
the Victorian National Parks Association (VNPA). This worthy
The Werribbee Gorge State park in Victoria was dry. Rabbit pooh, sheep skulls and a howling gale made our walk memorable.
institution runs a bushwalking
activity group out of Melbourne.
These dedicated walkers and
environmental advocates have
years of experience amongst
them and we tapped them like
rubber trees.
Not only fitness is
required for the Milford, but
some sort of bush sense is
imperative. Knowing what to
wear can be a matter of life
and death. The type of gear
�
available in those big camping shops is confusing and the best
advice you can get is right there next to you when you go for
a few short day walks with a bushwalking club. There’s bush
knowledge about blisters and recipes for scroggin and suitable
quick drying fabric and trimming your toe nails that you’d never
know if you’re just talking to salespeople. Regular bushwalkers
love their particular trousers or leg warmers or gaiters or hats for
their own personal reasons. (As far as our personal preferences
go, I’m not going to advertise but there is a New Zealand
company working in merino you might be interested in exploring.
If you were to travel through the Antarctic in a boat encountering
frozen waters you might require one of these. Some of their
products are essential for your comfort though I haven’t tried the
underpants. Yet.)
The Brisbane Ranges National Park in Victoria endured a bush fire in 2007. It’s still recovering. The walk is dry, rocky and suffers from root rot.
�
There is also the notion of the Alpine walking pole. If used
correctly two of these light, telescoping sticks can support up
to forty percent of your body weight. One stick will assist you in
balance, checking the depth of streams and prodding relatives for
another piece of chocolate when you can no longer speak.
The oldest walkers in the VNPA, some we suspect to be
on the wiser end of their seventies, are terrific advertisements for
walking – beating young whippersnappers half their age – whilst
carrying tents and food on overnight walks. One gentleman we
met explained it was not only the exercise and the careful placing
We walked along the Razorback to the top of Mount Feathertop in Victoria. It is glorious and it is dry.
�
of feet that kept you alert and vibrant, it was regularly breathing
clean air deep into your gasping lungs.
There is no doubt that building fitness does allow you to
enjoy the walk. It’s difficult to gasp at break-taking scenery when
your breath has already been taken and your legs are jelly.
The Milford Track is 53.5 kilometres long. It is carefully
regulated and your three nights on the track are monitored and
inevitable. You may not camp there. Over fourteen thousand
people march over those paths and rocks every year so if you
decide to stop you could well cause a nasty human traffic jam.
Because it is one way, however, most of your time on the track
is with company of your own choosing. That could be a beloved
person, a new-found friend who does not speak English or you
could find yourself communing with dazzling flora and fauna.
These wilderness experiences are spell binding and if you
let yourself relax and breathe and stop taking photos every now
and then to listen and wonder, you will be stilled with incredulity.
You may as well take your time to experience this beauty
because what are you going to do when you get to the hut? Eat
and sleep. And wash. In the water. Lots and lots of water. There’s
plenty of water on the track, beside the track and there are
�
Incontrast
the
MilfordTrack...
is full of
water!
MacKay Falls
�
swimming holes at every hut – though personally – it’s getting a
bit cold in April.
My husband thinks there should be more words for the
descriptions of water. We heard water plinking, splooshing,
whooshing, dripping, showering, flushing, hosing, kerplunking,
fissing, cascading, crashing and thundering. Coming from
Melbourne the amount of water is mindboggling.
It will rain during your time in Milford. There is nothing
more certain. We heard anecdotally Milford can have anything up
to �� metres of rainfall annually but 9 metres is entirely normal.
Melbourne, of course, enjoys about 9 millimetres per annum.
On the track, water clings in tiny droplets to mosses
hanging from verdant trees. Water curls in tendrils around
gentle quiet rocks. Water silently glides in wide river stealth and
The Clinton River
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waterfalls fountain, gush and pour into pounding rock canyons
and giant teeth fissures.
From the moment you embark on your bus trip from DOC
beside mystical (and hydro powering) Lake Te Anau to Te Anau
Downs to catch the ferry to the beginning of the track, water flows
everywhere, guiding you into some kind of aquabliss.
One should note, however, that where there is running
water, there is also a flight of anti-concord. It is of course, namu
(sandflies). This tiny cloud of stinging menace is trouble. One
must prepare. If you know you are a tender flower, easily irritated
by insect sting, it is worth stocking up on a course of vitamin B
at least a month before travel. It is controversial, but I found it
worked for me. I am a sensitive creature and I definitely avoided
Lake Te Anau
9
being bitten too severely this time. We also carried three different
types of insect repellent because, as you may know, everyone is
different. This is no more in evidence than in the effect sandflies
have on different individuals.
One of the great pleasures of embarking upon a Great
Walk (and there is no doubt that the Milford Track is indeed a
Great Walk of the World) is the fact you will not be alone. You
will be joined by human representatives of many of the worlds’
nations; each of whom will have different reactions to the
sandflies. Marvellous. Namu. The great leveller.
Namu were admired by our Maori forebears who used the
track to seek out and trade pounamou (greenstone). The sandfly
was described as a creature who would not allow anyone to
sit down and relax when they should be getting on and moving
some more pounamou. Another driving force behind the need to
keep moving on the Track.
�0
So, you’ve caught the bus and you’ve embarked on a
gorgeous cruise across a lake surrounded by many hills and
been surrounded by breathtaking scenery even before you step
out on to the path. It’s already gorgeous. You’re glad you came.
Absolutely. And now the Milford Track lies before you.
We step out onto Glade Wharf to wash our boots in
detergent to prevent the spread of didymo – a foul soggy toilet
paper looking algae (nicknamed rock snot) that wraps itself
around rocks and propellers and is spreading through the New
Zealand waterways. So far, the rivers and valleys of the track are
clean.
We’re already used to washing our boots, of course. Our
membership in the VNPA had introduced us to the frightening
Phytophthora cinnamomi, or root rot fungus that is devastating
some Australian native plants. In Victoria, we are encouraged to
wash our boots with a simple mixture of metho and water to kill
any spores after walking in affected areas. (Plus the energetic
customs officers in Christchurch carefully steam cleaned our
boots, a semi religious experience we didn’t care to repeat on
our return to Australia so we scrubbed them thoroughly in our
Christchurch cousins’ laundry before heading out on the return
trip to the airport!)
��
Act OneHere we are at the beginning of the track. A wide soft peaty
path, lined by Arthur Rackham fairy-story trees, meanders
enticingly into the distance. The beech trees drip with moss and
greenness and endless possibilities. The very sensible DOC sign
announcing the start of Milford Track seems to glisten with hope
and shiny wonder. We set out with rising joy in our hearts.
Felix, our fourteen-year old son, already out in front, has
befriended some backpackers and quickly establishes himself as
an independent person.
��
My husband, Philip, and I are celebrating our
seventeenth wedding anniversary and settle down for a
romantic stroll into magic land as a couple once more.
The other passengers from our boat disappear from view
and the track opens out in front of us. Cheeky grey and
white miro miro (or strictly, ngirungiru in the South Island)
(tomtits) with sparkly black eyes flitter down from the beech
forest to greet us. ‘Follow me,’ they each twitter. ‘This way,
this is your path, this is the way of wonder…’
And you, fascinated, follow their curious flirtatious
tiny glances and fanciful patters and twirls of feathers. You
seem to float down the curving gentle path. Suddenly the
way opens out into a mellow green meadow beside the
river and The Way of Showers and Chardonnay is revealed
with a blare of generator.
There are two ways to do the Milford Track. One
is the independent way we have chosen. This is what the
ngirungiru would call Freedom Walking. The other way
is The Way of Showers and Chardonnay. Here you pay
staff to look after you, thereby opening the track to rich
people who like to walk lightly, smell nice and eat well. Fair
enough. The sandflies will soon sort them out.
��
Felix on the first swing bridge over the Clinton River. (Bring polarising sunglasses to see many trout.)
��
In fact, we never had much to do with the Shower and
Chardonnays, the huts are positioned far enough away from
each other that only the most slow or the very fast could meet.
The first day walk of wonder is only short (ridiculously
if you’re paying for it but there you go.) It’s a little prelude; a
magical introduction.
The Freedom walkers carry on the enchanted journey
for a little while longer – enjoying our first swing-bridge over
the swirling waters of the Clinton River. Here’s where a pair of
polarising sunglasses would have come in handy. The waters
teem with trout and eel. Some of our fellow Freedom Walkers
had brought a licence and a rod each and ate fresh fish with
lemon and dill for the first two nights.
The Clinton Hut is basic but lovely all the same; home
for a night. We selected bunks and before we knew it, needed
torches to find our way to the bathrooms. There’s running water
in the sinks and flushing toilets. This Freedom Walking business
is not entirely deprived!
From Clinton Hut there’s a little side trip over a boardwalk
that takes you into another fairy grotto called the Wetland
Walkway. Our ranger had posted a sign inviting us to join him on
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a guided tour at 5pm that evening.
Delightful mosses and tiny orchids are nestled in amongst
orange and white flowers and oddly strange shapes of bog type
plants. Jim Henson’s creatures could be peering at you but it’s
the toutoumai (robins) who come to chat. They peck your boots
and stare into you to see if they recognise you. Then they test
your boots for insects. If you act like a tree a bird could nest in
you. You hold your breath. It could happen. Honestly.
DOC provides cooking facilities in the peak season so you
don’t have to carry stove or fuel. You do have to carry pots and
all your food and you do have to carry out all your rubbish. Mind
you, if you’re cooking a nice big trout then the bones and guts get
spilled right back into the river. What comes from the track stays
on the track.
The only time we were fully conscious we were sharing
our facilities with a large group of strangers was on that first night
as we waited for the ranger’s talk.
Each hut used to be minded by a warden in peak season.
Now, due to the nature of the word ‘warden’, DOC has decided
to rename them ‘rangers’. ‘Warden’ had a kind of prison tarnish
that doesn’t really fit with Freedom Walking, does it, whereas the
��
word ‘ranger’ is filled with wild adventure and Lord of the Rings
ambience and gusto and gung ho guts. Like us. Really.
These ranger people wear green and brown and have the
appearance of trees. They are rare weather beaten folk (can you
get beaten by rain?) who speak the language of trees and birds
(except kea – more later) and maintain track and tourist senses
of humour with their New Zealand dry wit. You can almost miss
some of the more subtle comments as they evaporate like spit on
a hot iron amidst the bare facts.
Rain did grace us with an increasingly heavy presence
that evening so Philip and I walked the Wetland Walkway without
the benefit of the ranger’s commentary. Once we’d got dry, we
thought we’d rather stay dry, suspecting more walking in the rain
further down the track.
We were very interested in meeting the ranger and
catching up with the weather forecast for the next day as were
the bulk of the forty odd people in the hut. The timed solar
powered lighting had flickered on and most had finished their
dinners and were chatting or enjoying a game of Euchre or Pass
the Pigs when a large family group of British and Dutch extraction
began to cook steak for dinner.
��
Now, imagine a relatively large crowded room with closed
windows. It’s raining heavily outside and it’s dark. Damp and dim
and close. These Europeans liked their steak really, really, really
well done. Okay. Burnt. And we all, slightly disbelieving, sat in a
sauna of meat smoke. Windows were flung open. More clothes
went on. And the large group of smokers of meat didn’t ever say
a word about their abysmal cooking. And no one said much about
the smoke really, except thank goodness we weren’t vegetarian.
It did add a kind of nightclub effect to the ranger’s talk that night
but that group had to work hard to make friends for the rest of the
walk.
The rangers are ready for anything. They have to look
after the weather, medical evacuations, floods, avalanches,
snow, trapping stoats and rats, cleaning the stoves, fixing the
toilets, finding lost people, finding lost things, knowing all the
rocks, plants and animals and warning the people about keas.
Keas are a New Zealand parrot. Saying the kea is a
parrot is like saying a Lamborgini is a car. Apparently keas like to
eat and they are gourmets; meaning they like to try new foods.
These foods may not be recognised by us as food. Keas also
like to annoy people. Maybe they’re trying to tell us something?
��
Anyway, one of their favourite things is to eat people’s boots. It’s
difficult to finish the Milford Track with only one boot, as one of
the Australians will attest (not that she can blame a kea – more
later). We heard a lot about keas before we actually met one.
Luckily the sleeping quarters are away from the cooking
part of the hut and people crept away from the stench to clean
teeth and snuggle into bags and snore. Earplugs are good.
Kea at Mintaro Hutphoto by Felix Millar
�9
Act TwoAfter our peaceful introduction from the day before, the second
act begins in earnest. Repacking takes ages. We feel late and
grumpy. The Swedish long distance runners left hours ago.
Heavy rain is predicted. Will we get washed away? The ranger
thought it would be safe for river crossings. We knew from our
DOC pamphlet that once we get to the Bus Stop the threat of
flooding is over for the day. Bus Stop? On the Milford Track?
Who knows why some names stick?
Just moments away from Clinton Hut there has been a
tree fall. Ancient trees lie across the path. There was no particular
wind or reason for the fall. The ranger is fairly certain there
wasn’t anyone underneath it. We check for boots – no Wicked
Witch of the West Coast. We clamber across the fallen trunk and
expect adventure.
We find some fantails, skittering and flittering by the
track, dancing through the air. It’s their turn on duty. You have
to think the birds must know where the track is – it’s been there
– peopled every day - for hundreds of years. Perhaps there’s an
agreement amongst the flock as to who should be on camera
duty that day. These fantails flirted with us until chased away by
an affronted weka.
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Wekas are like a very serious slim chicken. They have a
stern brow line extending down into their beak that gives them
a kind of school librarian outlook. They have a stylish brown-
feathered cover with a kind of flouncy bustle. Our first weka had
a sort of Mistress Housekeeper figure, flipping up the back of her
skirts and rushing down the channels beside the track, flapping
her wings and darting to and fro over the pathway as though her
life depended on clearing the place of those irrepressible fantails.
Clearly it was not their turn to shine. It was hers and she made
the best of drawing attention to herself.
The path, although still relatively flat, becomes thinner
and perhaps a little rockier. The hills on either side of the valley
grow strong and surround us with impossible photography. It’s
hard to get the grandeur into your head, much less the camera.
The river still runs beside us though its nature seems even more
changeable. There are more twists and turns and more crossings
of rivers. We found some ‘Australian’ (dry) rivers that showed
evidence of recent flooding.
There was a sense of impending danger; things became
just a bit more dramatic and tensions built as they should in all
great stories - will it rain? Will it flood? Will we fall over?
��
A sign tells you where to look for the Hidden Lake.
Dead give away really but a great spot for lunch. Was that a
rare endangered duck, whio, swimming out there by the cliff?
Something made me pick up a stick at Hidden Lake. I’d like to
thank the walker who left it for me. It was perfect. Elbow height,
strong with a slight kink creating a kind of handle; a glowing
patina of sweat and sandfly repellent built up over the wood as we
journeyed back to the main track.
The sign for Hidden Lake is not hidden.
��
Now, gradually, the pathway starts to ascend. We are
climbing to around 500 metres above sea level this day and the
ground seems to bubble with rocks of increasing size. It’s not as
easy. We’re turning serious. It’s work climbing these mountain
steps. We’re glad we’ve been training. Still in fairy-land, the
Brian Froud trees are with us, and the views ahead tempt us with
dramatic glimpses of rocky snow and ice above.
After what seems an inordinate time of effort we land
at Mintaro Hut and the air is stung with the shouts of freezing
swimmers enjoying the swimming hole. Thank goodness there’s
a washroom for those of us too scared of the cold. Mintaro is all
one building so everyone is thrilled no-one burns their dinner.
There’s the smallest helipad in the world there and that’s where
we meet our first keas in the morning.
More water in the Clinton
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Act ThreeIf Alfred Hitchcock had known about keas he could really have
made something of that old bird flick. The sound of approaching
keas is something I’m sure Peter Jackson’s sound crew have
built into the scary bits of Lord of the Rings. It’s a crescendo of
squeaking door doom, a car alarm arrival of vampire fang, a
bleating of wild claw; it is some wake up call, that’s for sure. But
underneath the grim vibe, those keas are hilariously funny. The
parrot themselves are olive green and hooked of beak. Some of
the walkers are out to protect belongings left out during the night.
The humans kick the birds away. Unperturbed, the birds perform
for us on the tiny helipad, picking at each other with ruffled
feather, monstrous beak and scaly foot.
After fueling up with porridge, we proceed in our protected
boots, our friends from two nights of card games and chats
absorb our son and we enter the rising panic of day three. This
is the big day, leading to the climax of our story. This is the day
we go over the top; McKinnon Pass. Will we get a view? Will we
freeze? Will we make it all the way up to 1069 metres? Will our
knees and ankles cope? Will we see an avalanche (preferably
from far away?)
��
It is fantastic. The climb takes us above the tree line and
into alpine vegetation. It is indeed another world. It is misty and
wonderfully mysterious. An impatience to get to the top grows in
direct relationship to the pain in our lungs and legs. Of course
we do make it safely and our thrill of achievement is almost
blown away by the sharp Antartic wind. Quickly our hand-made
knitware from our Australian friend Sally is pulled from raincoat
pocket and immediately we’re warm again. We prance around
the memorial. ‘This isn’t cold,’ said the professional guide who
guards thermoses for the Shower and Chardonnay team, ‘Last
week there was a foot of snow, 5 degrees below with hundred
kilometre winds.’ (A friend of ours managed to beg a little bit
of hot chocolate.) A couple of weeks before that people had to
be airlifted off the track for safety reasons. If you can’t proceed
through the weather, your journey is finished. Though if you pay,
you can get put on past the danger.
Glacial snow caps veiled n mist
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Luck has a great deal to do with your Milford experience.
I can imagine it could be very cold and very wet for your entire
time. You would have to know that you’ve got dry warm things to
get into at the end of the day.
However, we are fine, and after trying to squish more
scenery into our tiny digital cameras we march up to the Day
Shelter for a cup of ginger chai. There we all use the toilet with
the best view in Fiordland and it is.
Our day on the top, which after careful planning just
so happened to be my fiftieth birthday, is veiled in mist. The
The Clinton Valley from the Day Shelter
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clouds shift dreamily to show us where we’ve been, a curved
glacial valley deep in the distance. Then the curtain is drawn
closed again. We face another direction to guess what could be
hidden under the cushiony cover and suddenly a blooming great
mountain stands before us.
When we’ve drunk in view and chai and bracing air we
commence the downward journey. Here are thrills and sore
ankles aplenty. Once a loud cracking noise made us look up. We
could see glacial packed snow had slipped from the top of one of
the mountains. Would be terrifying in bad weather.
Step by rocky step I’m so glad I’ve found my craggy
stick. It saves me from falling more than many times. The way is
slippery, steep and winds down from the alpine land into a more
open forest – yet another land. The pihipihi (wax-eyes) chirrup
and fly in formation to greet us, a cluster of cheerful flickering
through the herbiage. The views can no more fit in to the camera
than can the sky. Luckily there is need to stop and admire often
for our legs begin to grind. We drop down a kilometre over the
day.
Once or twice already we’ve found discarded plastic
wrappers of some kind of barley sugar. This starts to build until
�9
we feel we’re in a new kind of Hansel and Gretel story – sadly,
those who left the wrapper trail will be lost forever or definitely
will be when those other walkers, who also were picking up
their plastic markers, find them. Some of the Freedom Walkers
suggested it might be those from Shower and Chardonnay. No?
Could it be? Why, those lowdown, lazy, rich, litterbugs…
The waterfalls are full and glorious but not threatening to
us except in slipping which some (Shower and Chardonnay) do.
(Karmic pay-off?)
Eating cheese, salami and cucumber biscuits beside a
waterfall is elation. We could have done with more scroggin
Icing waterfallsphoto by Felix Millar
�0
though our seaweed snacks lasted the distance well.
We older folk decided Sutherland Falls would look very
well enough from a distance and continued on the main track
but my son and his companions marched the extra hour and a
half to see the tons of water torrent down 580 metres from the
lake above. A guide from Shower and Chardonnay generously
showed them the safe way to get behind the wall of water
and get extremely wet. They describe Sutherland Falls as the
highlight of their trip and we older folk hide our mild jealousy well.
Dumpling Hut Swimming hole
��Sutherland Falls from a distance; no, it’s not Bill Bailey.
Sutherland Falls close-up.photo by Felix Millar
Wow. Would you look at that view?
��
We parents waited at Dumpling Hut, swilling champagne
from a piccolo bottle because the son carried the cups, and
listening to the strange strangulated cries of swimmers shrieking
with agony from the thrill of a chilly dip in the swimming hole.
Mountains rose around us. Waterfalls glistened like runny
icing rivulets down the side of a cake cliff. People were so tired
it was hilarious. The huts were more separated – and there was
even a small bouquet of forest leaves in the bathroom. Those
rangers think of everything, they really do.
The sky was clear and there were stars. So many, so
bright; and the astrophysicist held court, navigating the Southern
Sky for the northerners.
We had pancakes for dinner. With lemon and sugar and
melted chocolate. What’s hardship about that, then?
The Arthur River
��
Act FourThe last act of the Milford Track opens with the realisation that
in order to catch the 2pm boat to Milford Sound we will have to
leave at dawn. Oh, not really dawn, a bit later, but not much. The
days of lingering communing with nature are over. Will we make
it in time?
There is a vague sense of panic as we find we are almost
the last to leave the hut. I am champing at the bit because I’m
a slow walker and need to crack on. I leave hubby finishing his
pack and get on the track eating our son’s dust.
This is the first time I’m by myself in the story. And of
course, I’m not. The birds are dancing through the forest too.
Today, I’m witness to a bellbird singing. I am captivated. It flies
closer through the trees, warbling and, as though digging worms
in my soul, is reaching for passion and dreams and colours and it
has fantastic range of sound through almost screeching and pure
tones of light and a jangle that flits closer until he is right above
me and singing directly to me and that bird knew that I was there
for sure it did and it performed just for me, absolutely God’s own.
I kept moving along the path until I met another weka. This
weka was bold. She took her duty seriously. Entertain the human.
��
They like that. She marched up to me, and I was thinking poor
bird, mustn’t startle her, gentle wild creature, this weka, and she
reached out and pecked my boots in that now familiar Milford
Track bird like way, and then, she reached up and grabbed my
trousers in her beak. What’s this stuff then? She pinched it, felt
the quality, tugged, tugged again, went in for a big tug and I was
laughing at her perhaps just slightly worried she might be part
kea and then people turned up and she went and hid behind a
fern.
I thought, well, I’ve had my roving entertainer performance
– I’ll leave her to entertain the next crowd.
Although we had a fairly good idea of what time we
should leave various landmarks, none of our party had thought
to bring a watch. The tensions began to mount. The path is still
fairly rocky and the Shower and Chardonnay crew are walking a
half marathon the last day. We only had to walk 18 km. It’s flat,
mostly, but tricky on the foot placement.
MacKay Falls white thunder down huge rocks and beside
the waterfall is Bell Rock. Someone once saw (who and why?
Did they look under all the rocks?) that you could climb under
the rock and found that it is hollow inside. It must have been
hollowed out in a bowl shape over hundreds of years by the
��
Philip in Bell Rock; take a torch.
force of water and then some act of nature tipped it upside
down. Apparently one Shower and Chardonnay guide managed
to squash twenty-two of his smaller visitors into the bell at one
time. I’d watch out for that guide if I was doing the Shower and
Chardonnay way. And avoid him.
Beside walls of rock cuttings that prisoners smashed
through a hundred years ago, Lake Ada is the place to get those
post card opportunities. Really, it’s annoying to have to catch a
boat when you could be dawdling along communing with pictures
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everyone’s seen on the walls of the travel agent for all their lives
but the ranger’s suggested a cruise on the Sound is the correct
way to finish the Track and that’s what we’re aiming for. Even if it
does become a bit of a panic towards the end.
There’s a place to wait for the boat and you think, that’s
it, we’re done. If you’re Shower and Chardonnay there’s tea and
scones. We had arrived in plenty of time – twenty minutes before
the boat leaves. I took my walking stick back along the path
and said goodbye to it. When I put it down I noticed all the other
walking sticks that lay beside the track. Mine was best.
Lake Ada
��
We started to walk down to the boat and there was an
unexpected twist in the tale. It wasn’t all over yet. There’s quite
a tricky little twisty path to get on to the boat and on boarding,
my husband knocked his drink bottle out of the side pocket of
his pack and into the Sound. The captain immediately performed
an intricate rescue operation and fished the bottle up on deck
with his trusty boat hook. The tired walkers shared the last of my
son’s snacks. (Pork scratchings. Yuck.) The rattly old boat pulled
away from Sandfly Point and headed up into Piopiotahi (Milford
Sound).
We had done the Milford Track. We had been Freedom
Walkers and we had forgotten all about our previous life. We’d
done breathing and walking and my feet had gone flat.
It was a lovely story. It took a year of planning and it
marked my fiftieth birthday, my son’s
fourteenth birthday and our wedding
anniversary.
I asked fourteen year old Felix
what he’d enjoyed most, the views or
meeting people from all around the
world?
He said, ‘Meeting the people.’
We all lived happily ever after.
photo by Felix Millar
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Victoria, Philip, Felix, Ally, Cedric, Mary, Mike and Inigo fresh off the Milford Track (photo by a passing Swedish long distance running web designer.)
Be careful when cruising Milford Sound, the wind will change.
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Footnote: The story of the boot. Have you ever asked yourself,
is it possible to walk the Milford Track with just one boot?
When we first met Ally and Mike at Te Anau Downs, she
had just realised there was something wrong with her boot. The
heel was loose. Before the walk even started Mike fixed it up with
tape. It was their wedding anniversary. Over the next couple of
nights he fixed it with slightly different strategies and tape. On the
last day, the boot became part of the drama. Would it last until
the end of the track? Would Ally be able to make it to the boat on
time? Would she be able to walk at all? Mike even had to carry
her some of the last few metres but Ally made sure it wasn’t until
they sat down on the boat that the boot gave its last gasp. Mind
you, her toenail went black and fell off after a few days. Exactly
like Cinderella. Told you the Milford Track was a fairy story.
Cinderella’s bootphoto by Felix Millar