Day One: The Milford Track

After our pre-walk meeting, we are left thinking about how light we can make our packs while still having what we need to stay warm, dry and sweet-smelling for four days with 29 people. I have walked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon twice and so I'm thinking about switchbacks ('zigzags' here) and what that might mean in the hot sun or the driving rain with little cover from the surrounding terrain. We are committed to walking over a mountain pass (roughly sea level to 3278 ft). The Track leads from Lake Te Anau to the Milford Sound, a trek of 58.2 kilometers or 36.4 miles, if you take the side track to Sutherland Falls, which we fully intend. Our average is about 11.5 miles a day of hiking.

We all wake up and it’s RAINING. So the first thing we negotiate is whether or not to be humble and take a taxi to the pick-up point at the Station where we meet the group, or tough it out and be the trackers we want to show we are. Happily, the rain subsides and we can walk proudly with all of our gear down to the Station by 9:30 a.m. for our bus to Lake Te Anau Wharf. As you can see, we took to the back of the bus and began the fun without delay. We are Group #12 for this season - possibly a number that will be burned in the minds of our guides, as their luck would have it.

After a couple of hours on the bus, passing by the Remarkables, deer farms, hillsides of yellow broom and red tossack, we have our lunch in Mossburn and pick up another guide, and a SF couple on their honeymoon. From Mossburn, it’s a short jaunt to the wharf and our ferry across to the trailhead of the Milford Track.


The mountains looked rather rugged, but the chilly wind had us all invigorated to begin the short walk into Glade House. So we stop briefly to pose for a trailhead photo.




We are assigned bunk rooms as we arrive and then asked to reconvene for a bit of a nature walk around the area. One of our guides has been on the Milford Track for 5 years and leads our way through the moss-covered forest, giving us some bird call and plant identification. He talks about how the Maori used different plants and how early pioneer, Quintin MacKinnon, was the first to take on an overland route in 1888.

We have slide shows each night that give us instruction for the next day’s trek, as well as information about the birds, plants and geology we should look for. The bird call imitations have the group quite amused, and goads my group to join in the fun, setting the tone for our evenings. There was obviously some 'special' training involved for one guide in particular...