Finally - Milford!

The day for starting the Milford track finally arrived - with a huge dose of deja vu. Picking up tickets at the Te Anau DOC office, strolling along the lake front, getting onto the boat at Te Anau Downs - all things we did back in April.

But this time we actually got off the boat!


(Click on any picture for a higher resolution image)

Start of the track at Glade Wharf.

Day 1, following the Clinton River (5 km). Pretty easy going – flat, wide track, comfortable temperature.

Nature talk given by the ranger at Clinton Hut, pointing out key landmarks, flora and fauna

Day 2: Walking up the Clinton River valley to Mintaro Hut (16.5 km). Started off mostly flat with a climb at the head of the valley. In places the vegetation cleared to reveal steep slopes on both sides, waterfalls, and snow on the tops. It was really hard to judge just how high the peaks around us were – average around 1500 m above the valley floor.

Reflections in the Clinton River

Clinton River

Waterfalls. Who needs rain to make the Milford Track special?

MacKinnon pass in view to the left, just after Pompolona Lodge

Even though the weather forecast for the next day was good, we didn’t want to take our chances, so after arriving at Mintaro Hut we continued on to the top of the pass (extra 8 km, 560m climb).

Memorial cairn at MacKinnon Pass, with Mt Hart (1769 m) in the background

Memorial cairn and view across the tarn to Mt Wilmur (left, 1749m) and Mt Balloon (1847m)

Day 3: Mintaro Hut to Dumpling Hut (14 km). Tackling the pass again, this time with packs. Fewer clouds than the previous day, but we decided it had still been worth going up because of the different lighting in the evening.

View across the head of the Arthur River Valley from MacKinnon Pass

View back down the Clinton Valley from MacKinnon Pass

Descent from MacKinnon Pass into the Arthur River valley looking back up to the cirque at the head of the Clinton valley with Mt Hart on the far right.

The descent to Roaring Burn was hard going – long and rocky. 970 m descent from the pass to the hut that night.

Sutherland Falls, at 580 m, the highest waterfall in NZ – well worth a visit if you’re in the vicinity...

Topo map of the area around MacKinnon Pass. Each thin orange line is 20 m elevation (thick lines 100 m elevation); each blue square is 1 km to a side.

Day 4: Dumpling Hut to Milford Sound (18 km). Reflections in the Arthur River. At the start of the trip, the weather forecast for this day was rain, but as you can see, we didn’t have any.

MacKay Falls. Apparently MacKay and Sutherland flipped a coin to decide which of them this waterfall would be named after, and after MacKay won the toss they agreed that the next one would be named after Sutherland...

Arrival at Milford Sound by boat from Sandfly Point. We made it!

We spent the night in Milford Sound and took a cruise early the next morning, the idea being to beat the rush of day trippers from Te Anau. It worked – there were only 6 of us on the boat.


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We are now back in Te Anau to recover, wash our gear, restock food and get ready for Kepler starting on 30 Dec. At the moment the weather forecast is not fantastic, but there's still time for it to change...

June-November

A quick update to fill in the gap between the last post and now:

The jaw is ok, not great. I've made an appointment to see the specialist again early in the new year. When the DOC hut bookings for the Great Walks opened in July we booked tickets etc. to do Milford and Kepler over Christmas/New Year.

Work has been reasonably good. I had several months with no synchrotron trips (hence no blog posts), but that gave me more time for some hefty data analysis and writing papers. I've also been invited to give a plenary talk at the Small Angle Scattering conference in Berlin next September (a conference I was planning to attend anyway). There are still changes afoot but not a lot of clarity.

Church has been good. Raewyn and I went through an apologetics series (of topics we chose) with the youth, and they all seemed to get a lot out of it, which is good to see. If I can get my butt into gear I'm thinking of posting the lesson plans (or more formalised versions thereof) on my other blog so others can use them also.

We took part in the Brisbane Bridge of Hope marathon for a third time, joined by Jan, another lady from church for 27 km of the walk. Raewyn and I raised over AU$8000 between us, which has meant that we have been offered the opportunity to travel to Nepal sometime next year to see the Bridge of Hope in action. Still trying to sort out the details on that one (including how much trekking we want to do while we are there).

I signed up for the Taupo Cycle Challenge again this year, specifically the 160 km solo road course around the lake. This was to test whether the Huka Challenge (which I did last year) is on par with the Solo, as claimed by the organisers. I finished it in 6:38, and felt quite good at the end. I formulated two conclusions: (1) the Solo is easier, (2) I'm not a road cyclist.

At the beginning of September, Raewyn got stroppy with a door in the middle of the night and kicked it. In mid October she found out that it was actually broken... (where have I heard that before?) At the time it put our Milford plans in doubt, but a few Sunday afternoon walks and a weekend up in the Tararuas satisfied us both that she would be able to do it. Which brings me to the next post...