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Published: November 24th 2017
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Kia Ora!
The Milford track. What it is? It is known as the most beautiful hike in the world. And I can confirm it.
Like always I packed way too much and my backpack was too heavy. I was even carrying a pot and Tessy a pan.
The first day was really easy. WeI took a boat from Te Anau Downs to the start of the track and from there it was only 5km through the forest to get to the first hut. We arrived there really early and went for a swim in the river. The water was awfully cold. But it was really hot and we needed to cool somehow.
When we started cooking and took out our pot and pan, the people made fun of us because we were carrying such heavy things. But we didn't have the money to buy that special super light hiking food... and we just laughed with them and after that everyone knew us as the Luxembourgish girls with the pots. We got really famous. Even the rangers we hadn't met yet knew about us.
In the evening we met a lot of people and played card games until pretty late. We
were the last ones awake.
In the morning of the second day we were the last ones to leave the hut. Everyone had left really early (about 7 am).
The second day was my favorite. The views were just amazing. We were walking through a valley and were surrounded by hundreds of waterfalls. They were everywhere. But with the majestic scenery came the danger. We had to pass a lot of avalanche risk areas. At first we were thinking that it was nothing but after a few hours of walk we heard an avalanche that was not that far away...
After a 6 hours walk we got to the hut. There too we went for a swim. There was a little lake with clear blu but freezing water. We washed ourselves in there and it felt so good to be "clean" again. We had no showers in the huts so the lakes were our only possibility to get the sweat off our bodies.
We spent the evening with card games again and like the day before we were the last ones with Nick and Tom to go to bed. They were 21 year old boys from Sydney. The only ones
that were our age. All the other people were way older.
The third day was the hardest one. First it went up for about 2 hours. Once up on the Mackinnon pass, we had stunning views over the valley on both sides. Up there we had some snow too and it got pretty cold because it was really windy. But getting up there wasn't the hardest part. Thr hardest part was getting down. The usual way was closed and we had to take the emergency way that was pretty rough. It took us about 4 hours to get down and I slipped 5 times hurting my anckles again and again. Once we were down in the valley again I felt so relieved. One hour before getting to the hut we could take a 1h30 detour to get to NZ's biggest waterfalls. The Sutherland falls. 580 meters high, higher than the biggest hill in Luxembourg. The good thing about it was that we could leave our backpacks in a shelter and go there without anything. The falls were very impressive and we were hapoy that we had made the detour.
The last kilometers to the hut were very hard. I just
wanted to finally arrive and the sun had already disappeared behind the mountains. It was such a relief when we arrived. It was the first day that we didn't go for a swim, it was already a bit late.
On that evening we learned a new card game. The game of Mau. It is a mindblowing game and very hard at the beginning. But I love it.
On the fourth day people left even earlier than the days before and Tessy and I took our time like always. The walk wasn't hard that day. After a few hours we came to the famous waterfalls of the Milfordtrack. It is also known to have the coldest water of New Zealand. Because we had some time left before we had to take the boat to Milford sound, we chilled at the waterfall and went for a swim. The water was so cold that my whole body hurt. It felt awful and great at the same time. Tessy and I were the first ones in the water and everyone else that was there clapped when they saw us. Some thought that it was really easy to do it and went in to discover
that it was way cooler than they thought. Many people came to tell us how tough we were to swim in there and to do the track on our own at that age. I was pretty proud of myself at that moment.
After the swim we walked to Sandfly point. The end of the track. The end of an adventure. I was happy to finish the track but I was sad to leave all of that behind me. Who knows if I will ever be able to do it again? And I will never have the same luck with the weather. We didn't have any rain and that usually never happens!
On the boat the skipper recognized us because of the pots. We had never seen him and he knew that we were the two Luxembourgish girls with the pots. I think that they will all remember us for a while. And I will remember those 4 days for ever. They changed a little part in me. The part that was telling me that I couldn't do something. It is now gone and I think that I can do anything, I just need to want it hard enough.
Cheers
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