Wowzer, feels like it’s been ages since I wrote a post- speedy Sam keeps beating me to it.

After the Kepler track (so much steepness,) we took a bus to Milford Sound. This proved to be a great idea as we were so tired and in no mood for driving. Milford Sound was one of those places that every Kiwi we know had told us to visit- now we see why.

It’s so enormous and it makes you feel tiny and insignificant compared to how awesome nature is. Definitely one of the highlights of our trip so far. Our boat was nice and small compared to the other huge cruise liner type things out on the water, and it was just generally a lovely day. Apparently it rains over 200 days a year out in Milford so even though it was overcast with a lot of low cloud, that was classed as awesome weather. Along the way, we stopped to do a few mini hikes and see stuff like this, Mirror Lakes:

The next day, we moved onto Invercargill. The less said about this, the better. The only thing it seems to have going for it is a PaknSave (think Aldi on a much bigger scale.) We quickly got out of there and headed to the Catlins Coast, somewhere we’d heard great things about, from people on the Kepler track. We drove along the southern scenic route (not actually that scenic) but found some lovely little hikes and things to see on the way.

We stayed at a campsite right next to a beach and were lucky enough to see a colony of sea lions sunbathing as we walked right past them. They were so well camouflaged we almost walked into one! Seals are becoming an everyday sighting now also- but STILL no dolphins or whales.

We think he’s called Ben.

From the Catlins, we carried onto Dunedin, NZ’s self proclaimed ‘Scottish city.’ I was imagining it to be a mini Edinburgh and in some respects it is-lots of gothic architecture and lovely shops- quite a few of them seemed heavily Scottish themed. The only down side about being in a city is that we end up spending far more than we should- this was no exception. Lots of coffees, a visit to Cadbury world (Sam had never been to the UK one) many margaritas, cinema etc all adds up massively. I managed to find an excellent hot yoga studio as well- yippee! After all of this spending, we thought we’d head out to the Otago Peninsula, about 45 mins from Dunedin. In such a small place, we’d be bound to save money, right? WRONG. “Ooh, look a castle- let’s go into the grounds- won’t cost that much. Ooh and there’s a penguin colony in a conservation site- let’s do the guided tour. Shall we get another coffee? How about a nice lunch somewhere?” So pricey. We need to lay off spending for a while.

The penguin tour was definitely worth the money though. Sam has been wanting to see penguins since we got here but it’s tricky to see them in their natural habitat. ‘Penguin Place’ is a family run conservation area, that’s working to encourage Yellow eyed penguins. There’s only around 3000 of them left in the world and you can only see them in certain areas of NZ. We were lucky enough to see quite a few today, as well as Blue eyed penguins nesting.

Meet Jim. He’s 22 and had three penguin wives. He can’t make up his mind.

With only 3 weeks left in the south island, we need to start getting a shifty on. This afternoon we’ll head up the east coast and then bounce back and forward between there and the central south. We hope to be in Christchurch in around 7-10 days. After that, it’s back upto Marlborough, but to the other side this time, to visit some more wineries. We’ll go to Kaikoura for a couple of days to hopefully to see whales, but with our luck so far, probably not. From the south island, we’ll head back to the north island and up to Martinbrough (more wine,) back to Taupo to do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing and then over to the Coromandel coast, hopefully with a stop in Hamilton to see a friend. From the Coromandel, it’ll be full steam ahead  back to Auckland to see my lovely friend Nicola for a few days, before we say bye bye to NZ and hop on over to Fiji for a month of sun, sea and diving.  So much to do, so little time to do it all!

Having already invested in all the gear needed for multi-day hikes we thought we would tick off another of NZ’s great walks. In Fiordland there are 3 available: The Milford, Routeburn and Kepler.  Milford track is the most popular, and it turns out the huts are booked up over a year in advance which ruled that out.  Routeburn currently has major avalanche risks, which would’ve required us to get helicoptered part of the way (at a not insignificant cost.) Which made our decision for us: we were going to walk the Kepler track!

The Kepler can be done in 2 or 3 nights; after the agony with our backpacks during the Abel Tasman Coastal Track we decided to do it in 2 nights; more walking but with less to carry.  Laura managed to get all of her stuff into a daypack thanks to some impressive MacGuyvering of cables and carabiners.  This meant we had a lot of walking to do on the last day, but it looked feasible as it was mostly flat on day 3, unlike the first two days.

Our plan was to stay at Luxmore hut on the first night (after climbing nearly 1000m), Iris Burn on the second night (after decending another 800m or so) then make it to Rainbow Reach on the final day (where we were picked up by a shuttle bus.)

One of the reasons this track is meant to be so wonderful is the diversity of the nature on show and it really did deliver.  The route was part forest, part tundra, part alpine hills (snow!) and even a beach in there at one point.  For me personally it was even more amazing than the Abel Tasman and some of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen.  I don’t think walking will be the same again for me anywhere else.

The climb on the first day was surprisingly not too bad; the inclines weren’t too steep and our bags were mercifully light in comparison which meant we made it to the hut by 3 in the afternoon in quite a good condition.  This is one of the most beautiful huts in NZ and we were treated to epic views like this:

The hut even has a permanent ranger, who gave us a one hour nature tour and a guide to the stars- with zero light pollution and no moon the stars were really clear and you could even make out the Milky Way.

We made one mistake though.  Having seen the profile we’d assumed most of the climbing was done and it was mostly downhill, so we ate all of our chocolate (the only treat we’d brought.)  Turned out that was a massive error, as day 2 had a gruelling climb to the summit, followed by an incredibly sharp descent that was even more painful than going up the mountain!

Despite the pain, the views on the second day were truly second to none, looking down over Lake Te Anau and over to alpine mountains on all sides.

The final day was 7 hours of downhill, which we managed to knock out in under 5.  Although it was easy walking, by this point both of our feet were killing (my shoes are slightly too small so my toes hurt, and Laura had blisters) and we were exhausted thanks to someone in the bunk room who snored like an elephant so we were just desperate for it to be over.  You can see how happy we are at the end.