Our last day of this trip actually involved no hiking. We were allowed to sleep in, until 7:15. After breakfast, we boarded a boat for a scenic cruise of Milford Sound. The weather this morning was almost perfect, if you like spectacular vistas of mountains and water. The next 3 photos were taken before we boarded the boat.

As we sailed down Milford Sound, our boat came across this group of kayakers. We were cold, so I hope they were bundled up well.

Our hour and a half cruise took us out of the sound into the Tasman Sea. This is looking toward Australia some 1000+ miles away.

Milford Sound has a resident seal colony.

You can see how steep the rock walls bordering the sound are. Not surprisingly, they get no less steep underwater, this is why the sound is over a 1000 feet deep and has no good anchorage for large ships. (Cruise ships do often sail in, turn around, and head out again.) Just as on the track, there were spectacular water falls into the sound. Because the sound is so deep, our boat could literally bring its bow into the falls. Below on the right, you can see the kayakers again, keeping a more respectful distance.

Just before the end of the cruise we came upon these sea gulls. The dark band in the photo below is made up of small mussels that live right at the water line. The gulls seem to be feasting on them.

The cruise was a wonderful, relaxing ending to a wonderful, but difficult hike. Nina and I probably disagree on the emphasis that we would put on each of these adjectives. Once we were off the boat, it was back onto the bus for a 5+ hour trip to Queenstown. The part leaving Milford Sound and going through the Homer Tunnel had spectacular scenery. However, since we did not stop, I do not have any pictures. The rest of the ride was just long. For an additional thousand dollars, you could fly back to Queenstown on a helicopter in just 35 minutes. Five of our group took this option; it certainly was a spectacular day for it.

WARNING: This post is long and has LOTS of pictures.

Day 3 of the hike is what makes the Milford Track famous. The Milford Track has a reputation of being the best hike in the world, a distinction that apparently began with an article by the New Zealand poet Blanche Baughan published by the London Spectator in England. The article was originally titled A Notable Walk but was changed by an editor to The Finest Walk in the World and the tag line stuck. Both Nina and I think that there is a lot of hype in that claim — certainly to think it true you would have to really love rain forests. However, today’s hike, on a nice day, surely rivals the best days of hiking anywhere.

Today’s hike is also challenging — certainly the most difficult of the three serious hiking days. Not only does it cover 13 miles, but one must also go up and over Mackinnon pass almost 3000 feet up and then down. Adding to the difficulty, the descent is much steeper than the ascent and the trail more rough. We were awoken at 6:15 to get an early start.

Our luck with the weather continued today. Although there was rain overnight and we awoke in a cloud, Nina and I did the ascent slowly as the cloud cover was lifting, as you can see in the photo below. By the time we had reached the top of the pass, the weather was, as they say here, “fine.” Our group has a number of hikers who appear to approach each day’s hike as a race; their reward today to was to have completely missed the stunning views from the pass.

The Mackinnon Pass separates the Clinton River watershed, which we have been hiking up, from the Arthur River watershed, that we will be hiking down tomorrow. So, for the first parts of the hike today, we are seeing the Clinton River diminished to a fast running stream.

Although now eclipsed by other scenery, in some sense, the raison d’etre for this hike is the Sunderland Falls. Although we were not able to see them until the end of the day, for narrative purposes, I’m going to skip ahead and show/tell you about them now. At 580 m (1904 feet), the Sunderland Falls are certainly impressive and, depending on how one measures these things, some of the tallest in the world. As you can see in the photo, the falls are divided into three stages: the top section is 248 m, the middle 229 m, and the bottom 103 m.

The photo on the right was taken from about 200 feet away from the base of the falls. However, in many ways, the experience is most impressive closer to the base where the falling water literally smashes onto rock. When you get closer, as in the photo below, it is not possible to see the upper sections, but here you are enveloped in the spray — keeping my lens dry was a challenge! — and the sound is simply overpowering.

As some of us found, this is a great place to take a cold shower.

The world first learned of these falls in 1880, when Donald Sutherland and John Mackay, who was the first European residents of Milford Sound explored up the Arthur River watershed. About half way up the river they found a gorgeous waterfall (pictures in the next posting). They flipped for naming rights and Mackay “won.” Further up the river they encountered what is now Sunderland Falls, which are impressive because they are many times taller, but arguably less beautiful than Mackay Falls. Sunderland, who today would have been a resort developer, built a track from Milford Sound to bring visitors in to see his falls, which he claimed were over a mile high. (If you have been reading carefully, you will know that subsequent surveys showed that his claim was wildly exaggerated.) He promoted the combination of the sound and the falls as one of the wonders of the world. Although popular, the area did not draw large numbers of visitors because accessibility was limited by the difficulty of navigating the waters of Fjordland and the lack of a good anchorage in Milford Sound, which, as I will discuss in two days, is quite deep. So Sunderland wanted desperately to find a land route into the area. However, his explorations were curtailed by the apparent dead end created by the cirque at the top of the Arthur River watershed, shown below from Quintin Lodge, which is the destination of today’s hike.

As I described yesterday, in 1988 Mackinnon and Mitchell, were exploring the Clinton River watershed, also with the aim of getting to Milford Sound. From this direction, they walked up onto the saddle that forms the back of this cirque from Clinton River watershed, as we will do today. They then found the way down into the Arthur River watershed that Sunderland had missed and thus discovered what is now Mackinnon Pass. Until his death, Sunderland was peeved that Mackinnon had been the one to create a overland route to the falls and Milford Sound. This track would be the only overland route until the Homer Tunnel was opened in 1954.

Returning now to the narrative of our day, it began with a three mile hike from Pompolona Lodge to the base of the pass. After about two miles we reached the DOC hut, where the independent walkers spent the night and stopped there to use the facilities, the last before the pass. I mention this only because while we were there we heard a helicopter, which proceeded to land on a pad built next to the lodge. I found this very impressive because the spinning rotors could not have been more than 20 feet from the side of the lodge as the helicopter set down.

It turns out that this chopper was bringing in an emergency medical team  to treat one of the independent hikers, who was eventually airlifted out. Although this has not always been the case, for the last 20 or so years, all transport in or out of the track has either been on foot or by helicopter. The carry in all the food and fuel for the lodges and haul out all of the refuse. But that is not all. They were used to bring in all of the building materials used to construct these lodges and maintain the track. The photo to the left shows two large sacks of gravel, flown in by helicopter for this purpose.

Leaving this hut, we came to Lake Mintaro. Mackinnon originally called this Lake Beautiful, and, although perhaps not original, as a description this is certainly appropriate as I hope I have captured in the photograph below. I was also intrigued by the Paradise Ducks (Tadorna variegata), which were there. The photo on the right provides a better look at two of these guys.

Before starting up the pass, we also passed through the stand of New Zealand Tree Fuchsias (Fuchsia excorticata) shown below. These flower like normal fuchsias, so I imagine that earlier in the year this stretch of the track is spectacular. I included this photo here, both because I like it and because these trees provide an interesting contrast to the Red Beeches that I included yesterday. Recall how the beeches are covered in moss, an occupational hazard for trees in a rain forest. This is not good for fuchsias, however and to avoid this problem they continuously shed their bark.

The hike up the pass to the monument to Mackinnon, which is not quite at the top, is less steep because it consists of a series of 11 switchbacks. It is not until the 8th of these that we got above the tree line. Below on the left is Nina hiking the first switchback and on the right she is on the 9th. You can see the difference in the vegetation.

One advantage of being above the tree line is the views. The photo below shows Nicholas Cirque, a little beyond where we are climbing Mackinnon Pass. This is the actual head of the Clinton River Watershed. Can you see the rainbow?

Another advantage of getting above the tree line is that, even early in Fall, there are still interesting alpine flowers. I photographed many of them. Here, without comment (or names), are some of my favorites.

I guess just to prove that we really got there, on the left below is a picture of us beside the monument to Mackinnon.

From here, there are mountain peaks all around. This is Mt. Hutt with a tarn in the foreground.

This is the view down the Arthur River Valley (to the right). This is taken from the top of 12-second drop — the edge of the cirque that stymied Sunderland. As everyone in my family can guess, I might have been close to the edge but I was not really that close. Because I was not standing too close, Quintin Lodge, where we will be staying tonight, is just hidden by the edge here. Below, is another picture showing the drop.

The monument is still several hundred feet below the highest spot on the pass. To get there we headed up the steep trail on the left below. On the right is some fool scaring me by standing so close to the edge of the 12-second drop.

Here we have finally made it to the lunch hut. In the photo below, two members of our group are taking care of what is now our most precious possessions — our boots and feet. We have now done about half of the day’s hike; unfortunately, the hard half is still to come. The other photo below is of the “loo with a view.”

From here, we get a great view of the Clinton River Valley. Below is an unofficial reminder of those who maintain these trails.

I’ve mentioned that the way down was much steeper than the track up. On the left below is a shot of the initial part of this track with a bridge over the headwaters of the Arthur River below us. The photo on the right shows how later, where the track becomes even steeper, they built these amazing wooden stairs which helped a lot.

As we start down here, we get a last great view of the pass with Mt. Hutt in the background.

A little further, what will become the Arthur River puts on a stunning display of waterfall pyrotechnics as it descends through this steep landscape — the wooden stairway is in this section. These falls are apparently unnamed and they are not nearly as high as the Sunderland Falls, but for beauty and sheer variety it seems hard to beat them. Below are my five favorites of the many pictures I took here — Sorry, I’m sure I should cut down on these, but I just love all of these.

You can perhaps understand now why I wanted to show you Sunderland Falls first. If it were to have come after these pictures it would, I think, have not fared well in the comparison.

A mile or two further and we reached the end of the hike. First this hut, which is used by the independent hikers who still have two miles to go.

The photo below is of two from our group happy to be able to stop and relax.

Here is our table at dinner.

Maybe because we were all happy to have made it through the day, dinner tonight was somewhat more jovial than that of the last two nights. On the left below are Amy, Nabu, and Jess hamming it up for the camera. On the right are Rhonda and Kevin, the lead guide, helping us all make fools of ourselves.

Most of the first day of our trip was spent getting from Queenstown to the starting point of the hike in southwest or Fjordland section of the South Island. After meeting the rest of the group and three of our four guides – Kevin, the head guide, Amy, and Nabu – we boarded a bus for a three hour drive to the town of Te Anu, which is located on a large lake of the same name. After lunch there, we met up with the bus carrying the group who had just finished the track that was carrying our fourth guide, Jess. With everyone now assembled, our bus continued 30 minutes more up the lake to where we boarded a small lake ferry that took us to the starting point for the hike at the mouth of the Clinton River.

The forecast for the afternoon called for very heavy rain starting in the afternoon and continuing into the night. Although there was some rain during our bus ride and later overnight, and mountains were often shrouded in clouds on the this boat ride and our hike later, the most that we encountered was drizzle.

However, deeper into the park, especially on the other side of the Milford track, the predicted heavy rains did fall. Because these mountains do not hold much water, this rainfall raised the water levels in the watersheds of the Clinton and the Arthur Rivers dramatically, so the walkers further along on the track were walking in water that was sometimes up to their thighs.

Our first day of hiking was really only a warm up: one mile long on what you can see in the photo on the left below is an easy-to-walk path. At the end of this path was Glade House, shown in photo below on the right.

I believe I might have said something in an earlier email about how we were heading into the wilderness. That was technically true, but we certainly were not roughing it. This shows the interior of our room at Glade House and the view from it. For this and each subsequent night, our room had a bathroom with a hot shower, electricity until the generator was turned off at 10 PM, and there were great hot meals for dinner – this is a far cry from traditional hiking. Sharing the track with us are “independent” hikers (we are “guided” hikers). They stay in a system of huts run by the NZ Department of Conservation (DOC) – to minimize impact on the track, tent camping is not allowed. These huts provide dormitory-style bunk rooms, toilets, water, and hot plates to cook on. However, there are no hot showers for the independents and they must pack in all of their food and cooking utensils. The DOC manages and maintains tracks for 9 “great walks” like the Milford track and probably hundreds of lesser tracks. These tracks have the great advantage that they can be done relatively cheaply, so that families in NZ do a lot of tramping. This is all wonderful, but we are certainly going to appreciate the creature comforts of our guided hike.

After arriving at Glade House, the guides took us out on a nature walk that provided a fairly intensive introduction to the flora and fauna of the Milford Sound area – of course some of this kind of discussion happened on the regular hiking days, but with four guides and 44 hikers, we would often hike for long stretches without actually seeing our guides.
One thing we learned about was what had been the unique ecology of New Zealand, and how it has been decimated. The land mass that makes up New Zealand has been formed quite recently from sediment that eroded from, what was then the combined Australian-Asian landmass. New Zealand literally sits on the subduction zone at the boundary of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates. The islands are being pushed up at a rapid rate – in some places as much at 10 mm per year – as the plates slide beneath one another. It was a sudden change in this movement that led to the disastrous earthquake that just hit Christchurch. It was only about 85 million years ago that this process separated New Zealand from rest of Australia; importantly, this was during the time of the dinosaurs and before the emergence of mammals.

Because there were no mammals on the New Zealand land mass when it separated, the birds there evolved in very different ways than they did in the rest of the world. Without mammal predators, many of these birds did not need flight to survive and so evolved to become flightless. The kea, kiwi, and weka are several examples that still exist today, but there used to be many more. When the first Maori arrived they brought rats with them. Because these rats had no natural predators, their numbers increased rapidly and they began to wreak havoc on the bird and other indigenous populations. Later, Captain Cook and the European settlers who followed introduced other mammals the destroyed habitat and provided more competition for the indigenous species. In particular, becuase the settlers were disturbed by the large rat populations, they decided to introduce a predator to control rats. Since the early farmers objected to foxes because they kill sheep, the settlers brought what they called stoats (and we would call weasels), a vicious killer that did help to control the rats but also decimated other natural populations. Today, New Zealand is now spending millions of dollars a year trying to control rats, stoats, and possums, in an effort to restore some of the wilderness to something more like its original state. Many of the original indigenous species are gone forever and the only places where many of the surviving species can be found are some of the islands off the coast that were too small to be visited by settlers.

There are two other things that we learned  on this hike that I found particularly interesting. The two pictures below are of the same plant. You may have seen the smaller version, on the left, as a house or office plant. What is interesting is that when it grows tall, 20 feet or so, as on the right, it changes form into a plant with quite normal looking leaves. The two variants of this plant are so different, that it took biologists almost a century to realize that they were the same – also puzzling was that they could never find versions of the plant on the left with flowers or seeds.

Once these two variants were recognized as the same plant, the question of course arose, why do they look so different and what triggers the change from the first form change into the second. It appears that the issue is survival. The juvenile form, on the left, has tough leaves, with little area so it cannot do much photosynthesis, and so grows very slowly. However, it is also apparently not very tasty, and so it was not attractive as food to the flightless birds that used to dominant this island. Even if this variant could only grow slowly, it could survive. Because it just barely got enough energy to survive, the younger form of the tree did not waste any energy producing flowers or seeds. However, once the plant got taller than the 15 or 20 feet, placing it out of the range of the flightless birds, the plant switched to its leafy form. The leaves and stems of this form of the tree turn out to be a preferred food for many of the flightless birds, but they were now too high to be eaten. With larger leaves, this form of the tree can grow rapidly and produces flowers and seeds.

A second thing that fascinated me was what is sometimes called the New Zealand pepperwood tree, or mountain horopito (Pseudowintera colarata). Although the tree itself is not much to look at, the leaves  are peppery with, to me, a strong taste of cloves. The Maori and the early settlers used these leaves both to flavor food and medicinally. One could, I imagine, use the leaves in cooking like bay leaves. This is something that I would very much like to try. Note also that, although the tops of these leaves are a normal green, the bottoms are bright white. This property made these leaves useful for marking paths.

The photo below shows the group as Kevin makes a point about a fallen tree that is behind him.

The endpoint of this walk was Glade Burn, the rapids in the photo on the right. The photo below shows a portion of our group, all doing different things, on the rocks that form the bank of Glade Burn.

For a parting shot, I leave you with this orchid that was growing in a tree near Glade Burn.