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Published: January 29th 2012
I apologise now for the gross overuse of superlatives and exclamation marks in this blog but there are a few places and activities in the world that mere adjectives alone cannot begin to accurately describe and trekking in the wilderness of Fiordland is one of them!
I have just returned and recovered from walking the Milford Track, described back in the day as 'the finest walk in the world' and no doubt on all the official 1000 Things To Do Before You Die lists. I'm certainly not going to argue with such praise, it was an adventure I will never forget, a huge personal achievement, awesome fun and an education, as you will find out below if you care to read on!
Things I learnt while walking the Milford Track: 1. New Zealand is even more spectacularly awesome than I already believed it to be. I can't get over the rugged beauty of this country. You are almost too spoiled for choice with the scenery, it gets to the point where you look at a lake/mountain/tree/vista and go “hmm, yes that is a very pleasant looking lake/mountain/tree/vista, but not as amazing
as the one half an hour ago”. Yet if you saw this particular lake/mountain/tree/vista in any other country you would be holding your breath in awe!
This mentality is epitomised by the story of Mr Sutherland and Mr Mackay, two Victorian explorers who 'discovered' many sights while scouting a Maori trail through Fiordland and promptly renamed them after themselves. Coming up from Milford Sound the two gentlemen encountered a beautiful waterfall, tall and surrounded by lush forest. It was the most spectacular waterfall either had ever seen and they ended up tossing a coin to see who would have the enviable pleasure of stamping their name on it. Mackay was the lucky tosser and rightly proud of his conquest, but being a good sport he promised Sutherland that he could name the next waterfall they saw. Mr Sutherland was a bit grumpy about this and stomped along the path sullenly for a few days convinced there couldn't possibly be anything better than Mackay Falls. That is until they reached the head of the valley and he spied the colossal cascading waters of the highest waterfall in the whole of New Zealand...Sutherland Falls!
2. In New Zealand you don't go 'walking' or 'hiking', you go 'tramping'.
It would be easy to imagine 'tramping' meant something entirely different - just as 'thongs' have completely different meanings between Oz and the UK - but in New Zealand tramping is a national pastime and means going for a big walk in the bush (countryside). If it became an Olympic sport the Kiwi's would surely win gold!
3. Someone needs to come up with a whole new range of panetone numbers to describe the colours of New Zealand. Seriously, how did this country invent another 46 shades of green that the rest of the world hadn't thought of. And how the hell do they get their lakes to turn that incredible powder blue that compliments the sky and blends so well with the frosty white of the mountains and clouds? Something to do with the hole in the ozone layer, or the rain, or glacial melt – whatever it is high definition was invented for New Zealand!
4. Cameras don't bounce. Um, yes, I expect the rest of you knew that already! Well ok some cameras apparently do, but I don't own
one of those fancy gadgets that are shock, water, freeze and Frankwah-proof. So when I skipped up a switchback on a mountain pass and my camera leapt out of my pocket it got a bit upset..and subsequently so did I when I realised the screen no longer worked. Luckily a good soak in the spray from Sutherland Falls magically restored it to full function again...they don't write that in the user manual!
Which leads me on to...
4. Never trust a D.O.C. Ranger. Why the hell was I skipping up a mountain pass? Well, there is a particularly enthusiastic custodian at Mintaro Hut called Ranger Cate who has the ability to turn the worst possible scenarios – walking up a mountain in the pouring rain at 7am – into (I quote) a “super exciting” prospect. Describing in great detail our route for the following day, Ranger Cate talked us through each of the 11 zig-zags we would climb to reach Mackinnon Pass, suggesting that zig 5 (or was it zag 6?) would be so gentle we could skip up it – so of course I did. Except that Ranger Cate lied. There were
more like 33 zigs and zags, not 11, and so I ended up skipping about 12 of these in an attempt to ensure I had skipped along zig 5 (or zag 6). And it was on the last of these that my camera had enough of my antics and decided to jump overboard.
Ranger Amanda went through Day Four's route in slightly less detail, skimming over the terrain and describing the track as gently undulating with only one uphill section at the rock cutting. Obviously my idea of gently undulating and Ranger Amanda's are slightly different. While I was happy to climb uphill, what goes up must come down - the walk finishes at sea level - so with each incline I had to prepare myself for my calves to curse Ranger Amanda on the inevitable descent.
5. Living in the wilderness for too long can send you a bit doolaly. The aforementioned Ranger Cate is a perfect case study for this. Eleven years (about a third of her life by her youthful appearance) spent in the middle of nowhere with only yourself, the Keas and some passing trampers for company is enough to make
you just a teensy bit crazy. Her talk to us on the second evening of the walk was given at supersonic speed and she described everything as either 'exciting', 'super-exciting' or 'choice', from torrential rain and avalanches to cleaning stove tops and unblocking toilets. The talk was finished off with a rather disturbing mimic of a female Kiwi mating call!
Slightly less disturbing was Ranger Ross' mimic of the male Kiwi's whistle on Day 1 at Clinton Hut. A cross between the B.F.G. and Gandalf he walked us around the vicinity of the hut tricking guests into eating hot pepper leaves and describing how the track regularly floods above his belly button (roughly head height for 60% of the group)!
Ranger Amanda on day 3 at Dumpling Hut was less colourful, clutching on to a thread of normality having only been in the job for one season. When questioned what bird noises she could make she told us none, when pushed to do so because the other rangers did she quickly replied with a very dry and knowing 'Yes, but I'm not them'. You could see then that her impending fate was all too
clear to her!
Even in a few days I felt the wilderness sucking me in. On day two I spent the afternoon walking on my own. My friends were no more than 5 minutes walk ahead or behind me on the track and yet I didn't see a soul for more than an hour. All I could hear was the soft patter of the drizzle on the forest canopy, the rustling of robins amongst the undergrowth and the musical calls of the Tui, which I found myself imitating in a bid to have contact with something else living! What at first was tranquility epitomised soon became mildly sinister as the wilderness swallowed up all signs of humanity and left me feeling like the last person alive on Earth!
6. I am capable of far more than I thought. Before this walk I did no training. Yes I have an active job and lug heavy crates around all day, but I haven't walked more than 5km for months and have done no real form of exercise for about 2 years. I deliberately hacked the shoulder straps off my old rucksack because I hated carrying
it on my back so much and eventually traded it in for a pull along bag on wheels so I wouldn't have to carry my luggage whenever possible. I've never been able to find a comfortable pair of walking boots and the walking shoes I bought a few months ago are slightly small on my left foot so my toes touch the end when I walk downhill. With all this in mind I was as much nervous as excited in the build up to this trip and envisaged myself crawling to the end of the walk, begging my friends to carry stuff for me and had even resigned myself to the idea I may well lose a couple of toe nails!
I found myself getting up on the second day with so much adrenaline pumping through me I had to do 10 minutes hula hooping to try and focus all my excess energy! I then stormed off up the track and didn't slow down until my blood sugar levels hit zero at lunchtime. The third day was the same, pounding my way up Mackinnon Pass I barely felt out of breath and was amazed I had the energy to
attempt to skip as much as I did! Where I did end up struggling was going downhill. Everyone thinks going downhill is far easier than uphill but for me the complete opposite was true. I would have happily continued up hill all day but descending Mackinnon Pass was brutal, every step jarring my knees and stretching my calves tight as violin strings. I don't think my legs stopped shaking from the lactic acid until well after I'd finished a cup of tea at the bottom! A week later my calves are only just loosening!
Nevertheless I carried on, hopefully without too much complaint to my fellow trampers, enjoyed almost every minute of it and feel very proud of myself for having completed the challenge of walking 33.5 miles (55km) with a heavy pack.
As well as managing to walk the distance I overcame my phobia of swingbridges. For years I have been very uncomfortable standing on anything that doesn't have solid ground under it, swingbridges are the epitomy of this fear. I don't like being irrationally scared of inanimate objects so it was about blooming time I got over this and where better than on a
walk with hundreds of bridges, several of them long and very bouncy swingbridges. The first was also the longest: I walked across gripping the side ropes and forbidding anyone else to set foot on the bridge while I was on it. But by the last bridge I was confident enough to stop, admire the views, look down into the rushing waters and then bounce the rest of my way across taking a video!
7. Did I mention just how beautiful this country is?! Seriously. Spectacularly. Stunningly. Beautiful.
In fact the scenery is so incredible that you can't escape it, even in the toilet - Mackinnon Pass boasts the loo with the best view in Fiordland, probably in New Zealand, and possibly in the entire world!
The track took us through beautiful ancient fairytale beech forests, carpeted in pillowy mosses of gold and russet. Every tree was cloaked in more moss and dripping with feathery ferns and tendrils, some laden with snow-white bell-shaped flowers. Between the trees glimpses of mirror lakes and fast-flowing streams flash like a hologram. The huge U-shaped valleys are walled in by towering vertical cliffs, trees clinging precariously to
the rock face, creating a giant wooded amphitheatre that swallows you up and spits you back out feeling distinctly Hobbit-like and insignificant compared to the power of nature.
Nowhere is the might of Mother Nature more obvious that at Sutherland Falls where the water pounds into the plunge pool from 580 metres (1904 feet). Even on a calm and sunny day the spray coming off these falls hits you full in the face like a monsoon downpour. Not as imposing but equally eye-catching and beautiful are the hundreds of smaller waterfalls tumbling from the mountains all around Fiordland. Like strings of pearls and diamonds they sparkle in the sunshine and scatter in a gossamer mist when the wind catches them. The track crosses over countless streams and small waterfalls, luckily for us it didn't rain too much or we could have been wading knee-deep through the icy waters. Instead there had been enough rain to make the waterfalls spring up and splash around us, providing us with incredibly clear and crisp drinking water, but not proving hazardous for my short legs to leap across.
To top off an awesome four days we arrived at
Sandfly Point, leapt in the air at our achievements and jumped on a boat across Milford Sound, drinking in the sunshine and the glorious views of Mitre Peak and Bowen Falls, and then I promptly lay down on a bench in the cruise terminal and fell sound asleep for 2 hours!
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Jo Trouble
Jo McCarthy
Congratulations on completing the Track! Sometimes we need to hear stories told through a fresh set of eyes to remind us how lucky we are to live in NZ - thank you. Lovely photos, I\'m glad you had a great time here :-)