Kepler Track
We were off to a slow start on Saturday afternoon and still had to drive two hours to Te Anau and then walk five hours to the Luxmore Hut along the Kepler Track. We had spent Friday evening in downtown Queenstown. Let’s just say the night started with BJ helping me with a bit of my “homework” (see the previous blog) in Queenstown Gardens and, after dinner and live music, we didn’t make it home until the wee hours of the morning. But we were still determined to get our hike on. And we had already reserved the two nights in huts along the track, so we didn’t really have a choice. We were walking it no matter what.
We started hiking mid afternoon and followed a very well maintained and flat trail around the south side of Lake Te Anau. It was a beautiful afternoon and almost on the verge of being too hot. After about two hours we began our ascent to the Luxmore Hut. Because this is considered one of the “Great Walks,” the ascent was nothing like the trails we have experienced over the past few weekends. This track was wide enough for two people to walk side by side and gradually ascended the mountain side. I was still sweating profusely but this was a breeze compared to the root and rock maneuvers we had battled the previous weekend. Just 30 minutes before we reached the hut, the track reached treeline and we were rewarded with views of the surrounding mountains and Lake Te Anau.
We arrived to a very full hut . . . 56 people sleeping in 56 bunks in the same room. Other than our 6 person hut last weekend, we had yet to experience the livelihood in a Great Walk hut. You really have to be prepared for a social evening and we met some really nice folks and even bumped into Klaus, our roomie from the previous weekend at the Liverpool Hut. The forecast was pretty grim and we awoke many times throughout the night to wind gusts banging the walls of the hut. It was raining pretty hard the following morning and we decided to wait it out until early afternoon, hoping that it would clear. There is a cave close to the hut where limestone deposits have formed a bunch of stalactites and stalagmites and we scurried up the 10 minute trail to take a peak. We didn’t make it too far inside the cave but apparently it goes on for about 2 kilometers. We returned to the hut completely drenched and spent the rest of the morning drying out, eating breakfast, playing cards, eating brunch, reading our books, eating lunch, and finally putting on our rain jackets and packs to start walking.
Perfect timing! It was still misting a bit but as we reached the summit of Mount Luxmore, the rain stopped and the clouds began to part. The track continued along a mountain ridge for the next couple of hours and although the track was pretty wide both sides of the ridge seemed to just fall away to the deep valleys below. We would get an occasional glimpse of the lake or a peak in the distance, but the most amazing part of the track was the movement of the fog over the ridgeline. 
The track followed the ridgeline until the end and then descended about a million “zig-zags” (what they call switchbacks) to the Iris Burn Valley and Hut. We took an evening stroll to an enormous waterfall and spent the rest of the evening indoors escaping the sandflies, eating dinner, playing cards, and laughing with our new funny friend, Collin, from Wales.
The temperature this morning and today was perfect for hiking and the track was mostly flat through beech forest and fern groves along the Iris Burn (burn actually means stream in German?). We came upon this sign that gave us a few laughs: It reads “Native Falcon nesting area close to track. Beware of low flying bird, wear a hat or hold a stick above your head.” After 5 hours on the track we had the option to pay $8 and get a shuttle or continue walking another 5 hours to Te Anau. Although it was a beautiful day, our feet were sore and, without thinking twice, we hopped on the shuttle back to town. The kiwis would refer to our tramping style (warm huts, food in a bag, shuttle buses, etc.) as “soft.” I don’t feel the least bit ashamed.