Articles > Hiking the Milford

The easiest part of walking the Milford track is getting other people to join you. Barely a week after the idea was tossed off at a summer barbeque over 20 friends from Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin had agreed to fulfill their before-I-die wish. More were waiting in the wings but space on the track was limited over peak season Easter. There was just enough for our group of 13 adults and eight children.

Among them were my two children, husband and me, an inveterate traveller, pathetic tramper and someone who would prefer to be on the guided walk. But I lost that argument fairly decisively at the barbeque and resigned myself to an experience that would be much less fun than my work as a travel writer. Had I been doing this as a job I would surely have stayed in a luxury lodge the night before and after the hike, had my bags carried, my muscles massaged, and my every gourmet whim catered for.

Instead I booked at a backpacker’s lodge in Te Anau, borrowed some packs and bought a sack full of dehydrated food. Was I really going to enjoy this I asked myself not for the first time? It was a question I’d been asking myself for the last four weekends. Usually while weighing my backpack down with telephone books or halfway along a training hike round the Hunua ranges, in the Waitakeres and, even more sadly, along Ponsonby Road to work.

I’d asked the same question when I looked at the mounting bills for the gear I had to purchase and I mentally questioned my sanity when I looked at the gloomy weather forecast for Easter.

I wasn’t the only one. The day before the trek a group of us gathered at a café in Te Anau. Pretty soon we were comparing new boots, packs, socks and cookers. One man admitted to leaving all his warm clothing behind and left to buy more. Son then confessed he’d forgotten his new tramping shorts but swore he was happy to walk in boxer shots. Good idea.

Our group had already calculated we could have gone to Fiji with the money spent so far. We only hoped we wouldn’t wish we were there once we were underway.

The first day dawned overcast but dry. Typically the forecast was for rain rain and more rain until the four days was up when it was predicted to come over all sunny. But the first day was very forgiving. A jovial trip by bus (everyone in high spirits) to the wharf to catch the Fiordland Express to the beginning of the walk at the end of Lake Te Anau. Some of our group were already on the sailing ship, the Manuska. The high spirits kept climbing. Excited children were told off for running around. Someone on the Manuska did a brown-eye. Too late we rushed to take photos of his backside and came home with 20 photos of his be-trousered rear.

Then, almost too quickly, after months of planning, weekends of practice and hours of shopping we were doing it. Hoisting on our backpacks and actually walking the Milford track. With what seemed like the entire population of the South Island. But the guided walkers and their packs of champagne and chardonnay soon arrived at their hut and we were left to our own devices.

And whaddya know - it wasn’t too bad. The track was flat and firm and even. The walking poles easy to handle and completely unnecessary. The scenery was feathery, dark and green with luminous areas of wetland, and spirits were higher than ever. “Hey, this is good,” I called out optimistically to a fellow walker. Fellow walker stopped, stared hard at me and sighed. “Yvonne, this is not the Milford track. This is the walk to the car park.”

The first day is short (90 minutes), easy and leads to a spick and span lodge run by the ebullient Elizabeth Philipp. The first day softens you up for the rest of the trek. The first day could even be called something of a dirty trick. The first day is fantastic. In a fit of excitement I took numerous photos of the lodge, us cooking, the helipad at dusk (and later at dawn), played several rousing games of speed scrabble (who knew the ranger would have an MA in English), slept soundly and awoke full of vim and vigour ready for another day not unlike the one I’d just had.

In many ways it was even better. The sun lit up the day from start to finish and the scenery was the so breathtakingly, brilliantly, achingly beautiful it was almost unreal. Great granite cliffs reared up majestically all around us, the foreboding grey offset by sparkling ribbons of water showering diamante spray. Flaxen toitois, polished lakes and glimpses of tiny native birds completed the picture. And the birds were singing. Actually singing. I stopped more than once to take it all in. I couldn’t remember when I’d last heard birdsong in the bush.

It was so hot I even applied sunblock despite howls of protest from my friends. “Imagine telling people you got sunburned on the Milford Track!” they cried. But the track was lumpy, the result of recent flooding. Fist-sized boulders littered the track requiring concentration and impacting hard on the ankles after prolonged walking.

In fact, the track seemed to go on forever. Then just as we were ready to stop, a sign told us there was 90 minutes to go and to our surprise the 90 minutes took three hours because there was a gradual incline we hadn’t taken into account. I soon learned this is one of the fundamental laws of tramping. The last 90 minutes always take three hours. But it was only the second day and not even this could fail to dampen our good spirits.

Nevertheless the dehydrated food didn’t taste quite so good that evening. Watching the Christchurch contingent toast poppadums, heat rice and eat their self-dehydrated curry didn’t help. Which was followed by dessert of meringues, berries and cream. Truly. Someone had actually carried in meringues without a single breakage. Imagine her distress when Camp Cook said “Now crush the meringues and stir through the berries and cream.”

The Auckland contingent were not so afflicted, having only water to add to some very ingenious packets. They did however have some top-quality coffee, thanks to the efforts of a Spaniard in their midst who carried, not one, but two, expresso machines. It was as if we’d never left Ponsonby Road. Several more rounds of speed scrabble followed with a growing band of enthusiasts. I was now banned, found guilty of being a spelling Nazi; now all I was allowed to do was adjudicate.

Night-time and genuine tiredness revealed a whole new species – the resistant snorer - tired, noisy and immune to hissing, prodding and a good thump. My ears turned into microphones used by the BBC to record ant’s breathing. In the morning, I glared at tht happy and well-rested noise makers. But not for long - there were more important things to consider. Sheets of rain for one - and the infamous McKinnon Pass for another.

Day three is the day everyone warns you about. It’s the day you climb 500m and descend 900m and when they tell you the descent is the worst part you don’t believe them. Especially while you are bent double going uphill. I was almost grateful the wind chill factor was minus 10 and the temperature a mere seven degrees at the top of the pass since by then I was so hot I was steaming. Not for me the recommended addition of more clothing. Just a cup of hot tea, soggy bikkies, salami and crackers in the fuggy hut. And then back out into the sleet.

Perhaps it was the simple act of stopping for a bit but once back on the track, rain, wind and fog notwithstanding, nothing seemed so bad. Though we could only see a few feet in front of us, the alpine vegetation that came into view looked more than usually vivid, almost preternaturally lime-green and succulent. It was like coming upon one cameo after another of large polished foliage framed in smoky clouds. Marvellous.

My shopping also came to the fore. The poles were a treat dragging my carcass up and down the pass. The poly props were invaluable in the rain and seemed to steam dry. Only my seven-year-old Canadian-bought boots let me down. On the descent they fell apart. Literally. My left heel separated entirely from the sole. By the time I showed Peter Jackson, the ranger at Dumpling hut, they were flopping around horribly.

“Happens all the time,” he said cheerfully. “But I should be able to do something.” Three screws and some Denzo tape later, my boots were handed back, not quite virgo intacta but as near as dammit. Three cheers for ranger ingenuity.

The last night was almost mournful. It was the last night we’d eat dehydrated food (which tasted better as the days wore on), the last night I’d play arch villain at speed Scrabble, the last night we’d climb dog-tired into our sleeping bags and the last day we were going to wear our newly acquired, fabulously expensive tramping clobber,

“I’m torn,” said fellow walker. “Shall I wear my $70 silk t-shirt or my $180 icebreaker (with 20 percent off on sale of course?) And where is my specially designed thermo-wicked supersonic underwear? Look at the packaging. The woman wearing them is unstoppable. With these on I shall fly.”

But if someone had told me I had to walk from Auckland to Papatoetoe by three pm the next day I might not have been so buoyant. For that is, in effect, what we had to do to catch the last boat out. The coffee-swilling Spaniard didn’t even stop for lunch. The rest of us were up at daybreak so we could find time to stop by that waterfall (better than the long side track to the Sutherland Falls), eat the rest of our rations and then panic.

What began as a steady walk by day’s end was on the verge of turning into a run. The sun was out again prompting me to take far too many shots of dappled-sunshine-through-foliage which just looked like green splodge once printed. We arrived with just enough time to take a group shot of our now ragged but smiling group.

Finally on the boat we compared notes and blisters. Almost everyone had them – thick socks and expensive boots notwithstanding. Fellow walker even had RSI thanks to her overzealous use of the poles though she swore that the thermo-wicked underwear was a life-saver. Son convinced boxer shorts make terrific tramping gear.

Everyone was exhausted but the biggest moaners on the trip – me, Spaniard and fellow walker – are the first to suggest another walk next year. Lake Waikaremoana it is then. Can’t be harder than the Milford. Surely.

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