What We Do is Who We Are: New Zealand Great Walks

We spent nearly two weeks in Fjordland and Mt Aspiring National Parks in January walking the Kepler and the Routeburn Tracks with some R and R in between at Milford Sound, Te Anau and Queenstown. A fantastic trip taking 28 teenagers on a Duke of Edinburgh excursion - great kids, good company and great scenery. Some details below.

Gear

We both had packs - mine is nearly 30 years old but still in good nick (55 litre Macpac) and Tania's is relatively new (45 litre) from Summit Gear in Katoomba. Tania's was waterproof but I wasn't confident about mine so I added an Osprey rain cover to make sure ($30 from Paddy Pallin) - turned out the pack was OK but the cover was good to keep it a bit cleaner anyway.
Whatever we took, we had to carry for the duration so we packed pretty sparingly - down sleeping bag, liner, 2 sets of walking clothes (light nylon pants and merino T-shirt for me) and one other night set, 3 pairs of merino socks, merino jocks (Tania 2 and me 1!), fleece, rain jacket and pants, head buff/hat, sunnies, KFS cutlery (take a sharp knife next time), bowl, cup, Trangia stove, toiletries, camera, phone (with a book or two loaded on for reading at night). Airport weigh-in was about 10kg each pack with only food to add when we got to Te Anau. Everything went inside a series of Gladbags compressed and sealed and we took lots spares and a few good quality Glad garbage size bags as well - one of which we used as a pack liner.
I had my Culman camera bag as hand luggage - passports, pen, wallet, camera, phone, headphones, phone-charger. Tania took a rolled day-pack with her stuff which worked well as a shopping bag etc as well. We'd need a better quality one next time as it had self-destructed by the end of this trip.
Boots we already had - Raichle Goretex - and these were excellent. The only other footwear we took was Crocs (Tania) and Keen sandals.

Where we went - Kepler Track

Flew with Air New Zealand direct to Queenstown (about 3 hours) - great little international airport with only a main runway and no taxiing roads ie. the planes land, taxi and takeoff all on the same strip of bitumen. Picked up by bus and taken direct to Te Anau - 171 km and took a couple of hours along Lake Wakatipu and then farmlands through to Te Anau - very green and sunny and about 18 degrees.
Checked into the Youth Hostel on Mokonui St - great place and cheap. We had already booked our Hut stays on the Kepler and Routeburn tracks some 6 months previously and paid $54 per adult/night and all the kids under 18 were free.
Te Anau is a fantastic place to prepare for the walks. The supermarkets are geared up trekking-food-wise - lots of dried meals and fruit/nuts etc - especially the "Fresh" Supermarket on Milford Crescent and open 7am until 9pm 7 days. In fact all the shops in town were open very long hours and we stocked up on food and a new fleece for me from H and J's. The food we took for the Kepler walk of 4 days and 3 nights was:

Food for Kepler Track

The weather predictions were for very heavy rain and storms for the next day when we were due to start and they were right. It rained pretty much non-stop for the next 3 days - the place doesn't get to look so nice and green without lots of rain. In fact, the Fjordland National Park area on the west coast where we were gets an average of 6 and a half metres of rain a year - yes - that's not a misprint - that is 10 times Sydney's average annual rainfall.
The track map is below:

Kepler Track - we landed at Dock Bay and went anticlockwise on the red dotted line, though I couldn't find the red line on the ground!

We water-taxied over Lake Te Anau to Dock Bay - we were supposed to go to Brod Bay (as per the map) but apparently the jetty was already under water so we had a beach landing at Dock Bay. We had noticed the water level was up a bit before we left Te Anau:

Lake Te Anau - the clouded-in mountain to the upper right is where we walked ie. Mt Luxmore

but we didn't know what we were in for.
Took about 5 hours to get to Luxmore Hut - 4 hours below the tree line in the rain and an hour above the tree line in a raging storm. I used a small umbrella, shorts and merino t-shirt while in the trees instead of the rain gear as it was pretty warm and humid and climbing steeply at times. But I quickly put it away above the tree line - what with the lightning, thunder, 80km/h wind and heavy rain - donned the rain gear and I was fine.
Night 1 at Luxmore hut was great with apparently great views though we didn't get to see too much. The track profile was simple enough too.

Kepler Track Profile

Luxmore Hut - the last bit of the track into the Hut

Looking into South Fjord from Luxmore Hut

Helicopter pad at Luxmore Hut

At Luxmore Hut

Day 2 was Luxmore Hut to Iris Burn Hut about 6 hours away. Stunning countryside on a fine day but we had rain, hail, 100km/h wind and landslides - it was still amazing to be walking out in such countryside with your own thoughts for company for 6 hours huddled inside your rain gear. We were about 1000m up so it was pretty cold as well though not sure of the temperature - certainly with the windchill it would have been below 0 all day across the top before descending into Iris Burn. One of the kids actually got blown off the track at one point as well - it was very exposed up there. The photos below don't really show the wind and hail but the countryside was fabulous.

From the track to Hanging Valley Shelter

You can see the track for a long way ahead...

and a long way behind.

Very steep off the ridge path to Hanging Valley Shelter.

The descent into Iris Burn Hut below the tree line was spiced with the track being cut in 4 places by a major landslip - the track's switchbacks were neatly dissected for up to 40 metres at a time making the track hard to find at times. Everyone was glad to get into Iris Burn Hut that night.

I took to having black coffee (took Moccona in a watertight plastic container) of a morning rather than black tea and had Pita bread with honey or Vegemite for breakfast. Tania had her usual porridge. Dinners were usually a "Back Country" dried meal ("serves 2") mixed with Uncle Ben's rice - very filling and fairly tasty and all cheaper to buy in NZ than Australia. The Outdoor Gourmet meals weren't bad either though a bit dearer. I have to admit though that after a few nights, no matter what freeze-dried meal we had, they started to taste pretty much the same. The rice we added and any spices you could take might make quite a difference. Lunch was usually had late after we made it into the Hut (mostly due to the weather being so bad - there was no where to stop without everything getting wet) about 3pm and was cracker bikkies, Vegemite and sliced Edam cheese. One packet of cheese and bikkies did the 4 lunches.

All the huts have running cold water into the kitchen and flush toilets as well. Gas cooktops are provided in the hut kitchen with tables and benches to sit. The bedding ranges from double decks of up to 14 mattresses all next to each other through to alcoves of 2 double bunks in a series. Vinyl mattresses are provided. Some huts have multiple bunk rooms and a wash room with a basin and cold water.

Iris Burn Hut to Motorau Hut was easy and very pretty walking along the Iris Burn - some serious flooding had been through there the day before (when we were up on top) but thankfully it had dropped by the time we came through, though in some spots the track was still covered by higher than boot high water for up to 10-20 metres of track. Some very big landslips again - the soil is only maybe half a metre deep and then its just rock. It rained most of the way and took about 5 hours or so. The Ranger (there is a resident Ranger at each Hut) was out track fixing all day and was dropped off by helicopter about 6pm. They do a Hut Talk each night at 7.30pm and collect the booking voucher - when you book online, you collect your booking voucher for each night from the Department of Conservation (DOC) office before you start the walk. There's one at Te Anau and one at Queenstown.

The days are so long in January - its beautiful twilight until about 9.30 or 10pm (when it's not raining mind you).