Everybody loves sandflies
Well, maybe not everybody. Maybe not even most people. Maybe most people actually hate them. đ
We headed from Christchurch straight down to Te Anau on New Year’s Eve, stopping for breakfast at Cafe Verde in Geraldine and fantastic fresh fruits and produce from the orchards around Cromwell. Te Anau was packed, only a few motels had rooms left so we stayed at Edgewater Motel for a couple of days. Ok room, but overpriced – guess that’s the good old supply and demand at work … . Asleep at 9pm, peacefully unaware of any celebrations around us. đ An early start on New Year’s Day offered a perfect excuse to stretch our legs for real – Gertrude Saddle was awaiting.
A relatively short but steep walk, fairly easy in good weather (lucky us!) but should not be attempted in bad weather. Up and up and up you go with steel cables to hold onto for the last few meters. The reward: Wonderful views of the Gertrude valley, small waterfalls, mountain peaks, and Milford Sound from the top of the saddle. One of the best (half-)day walks for sure, a real stunner and good workout.
Next day saw us setting off on our second attempt at walking the Kepler Track.
The first attempt a couple of years ago was ruined because the bloody airlines lost our luggage. No excuses this time! Took the earliest water taxi to Brod Bay at 8am and we were on our way. While there are a number of evenly spaced huts on the track, there is unfortunately only one campsite at Iris Burn, so it’s basically two relatively long days, with most of the elevation gain/loss on the first day. But it’s worth it!
Day 1: Brod Bay – Iris Burn Campsite. Day 2: Iris Burn Campsite – Rainbow Reach Carpark.
The first ascent is through the wonderful forest, moving away from the lakeshore towards Luxmore Hut. Wonderful views from up there already, but they keep getting better as you walk along the ridge, two more climbs, past Mt Luxmore – fantastic scenery with a bunch of lakes, tarns, mountain peaks … lovely. The descent takes you back into a completely different, fairy tale style forest, down to Iris Burn.
The campsite is pretty basic and full of sandflies. We were so glad we’d brought our headnets, but it’s still annoying. Just no fun to hang around outside and enjoy the nature around you when there’s gazillions of the bloodthirsty beasts trying to kill you. It started to rain in the evening, thankfully after we’d set up our tent. Always such a peaceful sound listening to the splattering of the rain from inside your tent. All whilst killing the sandflies that had gotten into the tent. Up early the next morning with clouds basically at ground level, not a chance of getting the tent to shed some water so we packed it up soaking wet, a nice bit of extra weight and workout for me – I was glad the second day was mostly flat/downhill. And boggy. But still very beautiful, wonderful atmosphere in the forest in the morning, with the sun coming through a bit later and then the final kilometers along the river and lakeshore to the Rainbow Reach car park, where we waited for roughly 90mins for out shuttle to pick us up. (Not because the shuttle was late but because we were early.)
We did encounter one of the rarest and most dangerous creatures of the forest – the legendary moss monster! No one has seen it and survived – we however not only survived but managed to take a picture! Take that, moss monster!
What did we learn? a) A beautiful track! b) Better do it in the reverse direction – going up from Iris Burn to Luxmore is nice than going down that stretch, whilst the descent from Luxmore Hut to Brod Bay is easy peasy on a nice forest track. c) This particular (Great Walk) campsite was overpriced – for NZD76 they could at least install a waterfilter on the rainwater tank … . Also not sure, with all the big talk around sustainability and environment and all that – why don’t you provide gas to the campsite as well? I get it that you want a differentiator to charge more money for the hut, but still – each and every camper buys the tiny gas cartridges and throws them away afterwards, that doesn’t make sense … . Anyway, none of my business. d) There’s much better and cleaner (and cheaper) food to be had than the dehydrated stuff – if you are willing to carry just a tiny bit more weight. We tried and loved it, goodbye overpriced dehydrated MREs. e) The metservice forecast is completely useless. Accuweather does a decent job, but anything beyond 24hrs is useless. So just roll with it.
Saturday a little rest day to plan the next couple of days (next stop: Roxburgh), Sunday off to Milford Sound, to walk the first couple of k’s of the Milford Track, from Sandfly Point to Giant Gate Falls.
No sandflies in the sound, unheard of! Sunny weather, a nice breeze, a beautiful, easy walk through the native forest to the falls – plenty of sandflies there – back again. Water taxi to Deepwater Basin, got a lift to the cruise terminal, a short cruise through the sound, back on the bus to Te Anau. All working out perfectly well, the scenery of Milford Sound from the water is always stunning. I’ve been here a couple of times and am still awed by the majestic peaks and waterfalls, by the water. We got to see fur seals for the Reisebegleitung and even a dolphin swimming and jumping along our boat – turns out the Reisebegleitung hates dolphins! Shocking! Don’t want to imagine what might have happened if she’d had access to a harpoon!
Back in Te Anau in the afternoon, early dinner, then off to Roxburgh in the Teviot Valley!