Part 1 of our Milford Track Adventure

To be clear, neither Susanne nor I were saved from certain death while we did the Milford track. In fact, we faced no certain death scenarios at all while enjoying one of the most amazing hikes in the world — so no need to panic. Although, I will say that driving in New Zealand is no joke. We warn people that come to visit that the roads require 100% attention at all times and that assertion still stands after our drive from Mapua down to Te Anau. Heaps of distracted tourists not used to narrow windy roads, driving on the left or the size of their newly rented campervans make for a few choice words along the way. We had three sphincter clinching moments in the 9 hrs on the road. The first was a truck at a narrow bridge who just couldn’t be bothered with a single lane. Susanne navigated the impending doom to perfection. Whew. The next was a campvan driven by somebody from not New Zealand who (a) wouldn’t slow down to let me pass and (b) also felt unconstrained by the designated lane they had been assigned on the left. That was good for a repertoire of four letter words from both of us. And finally, and this was the scariest, the dude heading our way at 100 kmh that hit the shoulder and almost spun out of control which would have resulted in a very bad situation to say the least. I slammed on the brakes as hard as I could and was about 3 seconds from taking the poor Subby through the fence and into the paddock to avoid him. Luckily, he managed to keep it together and we didn’t have to take an unscheduled trip into the sheep paddock. That one had both of us coursing with adrenaline for about 15 minutes. No bueno. Be careful out there please!

But I digress.

We left early on the 7th to start our drive to Te Anau, about 13 hrs total. I had found a reasonably cheap place to stay along the way in Makaroa. It turned out to be pretty nice for $150/nt and we were both glad to grab a little food and wine. It had a nice view of the Wilkin River valley and was near the start of the Gillespie Track.

We got up in the morning and drove down to Frankton to get a few supplies for the trip. I needed some rain pants and Susanne needed some gloves. As we were standing in the MacPac store cogitating the various glove options, one of the staff let out a blood curdling scream as she hurled a backpack high into the air right next to us. A colleague of hers came running to her rescue. She informed him there was a giant spider hiding in the backpack waiting to attack any unsuspecting people.

The MacPac dude then took the pair of gloves that Susanne was intending on purchasing and took the corner of the packaging furthest from his hand and picked up the poor squished spider and said “I am sure that is a black widow!!” We told him it was not. He was still terrified despite the spider now having the body shape of a crepe from a 5 star hotel.

Eventually we made it up to the check out counter where Susanne had to purchase the gloves with squished spider guts on the packaging. The debate over deadly spiders continued with the staff. “Maybe it is a Red Back! I have heard they are in New Zealand now!” Negatory. It was definitely not a Red Back. Now to be fair, I have googled it and evidently a small number of Red Back spiders have made their way to New Zealand; this was not one of them. I told them they should give us a discount for saving them from almost certain death…they did not. What a lack of gratitude.

We checked into our hotel in Te Anau which was really nice. Susanne had used points that we had accumulated to get this place and we both agreed it was a good use of a freebee.

Susanne had to do some vocal practice for her choir, so I headed out and wandered around the big town of Te Anau. It a nice little town despite being a total tourist trap. You can buy any number of items from fuzzy stuffed keas to obnoxious t-shirts that say “I kissed a kiwi” at a number of locations. Despite that, it is lovely and has a nice path along the lake with views to die for. I stopped in at the visitor centre, but it was a bit sad and lacking.

The next day, we decided to go hike along the Kepler track at Rainbow Reach. It is a flatfish walk with beautiful beech forest. Susanne didn’t want to risk the climb up to Luxmore hut before the Milford track.

We found a nice place for dinner that night at the Red Cliff Restaurant and Bar although we could only get a booking at 4:30 pm. Nothing like feeling old when you are having dinner at 4:30, but the food was good.

We checked the weather that night and it looked good for Monday, bad for Tuesday and solid for the rest of our time on Milford. That seemed like a pretty good forecast overall. We were both excited for the trip to start the next day.