New Zealand part 6 – 4 Days on the Kepler Track

Day 1

A gravelly shore against a dark forest. In the distance a small boat carrying a collection of early-morning hikers grumbles its way across a massive, still lake. As the boat bumps its nose onto the shore a variety of hikers disassemble, me at the front. Then, one after another, packs are hoisted, straps tightened and folks begin wandering up the trail, me at the back. Slipping noiselessly into the beech forest it is cool, quiet and damp. Trees drooping under hanging clumps of Spanish moss like wispy strands of an old man’s hair. Leaden skies threaten but never quite deliver on the promised rain.

Today is our first day on the Kepler Track, a four-day trek and one of New Zealand’s famed Great Walks. The Kepler promises an epic ridge traverse, camping on the shores of an enormous glacially-carved lake, and the chance to swim in crystal clear mountain rivers. But, first we have to get there. So we climb, all we will do today is climb along a manicured trail of undulating switchbacks. Immediately my legs begin to protest. Tired with achilles tendons like straining piano wires, like any moment they might snap and rupture through the skin of my lower leg. Equally fragile is my ego. Hence, the back of the pack start. As my fellow hikers steadily pull away ahead of me I stop frequently to stretch, or even just to pause and let the strain in my legs ease the smallest amount. But soon, too soon to feel good about it another wave of hikers pass me, the bird chatter and silence cut by the sounds of hard breathing and trekking poles against stone. It seems like everybody and their mom passes me on this ascent. As I step to the side of the trail for the hundredth time I try and rather fail to not let this discourage me. “This is just going to be hard until it’s not,” I tell myself like I have so often on this trip. And then I just keep walking, because what else is there to do?

Suddenly, the beech trees give up their dominance over the mountain and we are popped out above tree line into a snow globe of dense cloud and golden grass. And at the edge of this snow globe I see the most beautiful thing I have seen all day: it’s a sign. Not a metaphorical or spiritual sign but literal sign in the cheery yellow and green of the Department of Conservation. It reads: 45 mins. to Luxmore Hut. I could weep with joy, I almost do. But it is very difficult to hike uphill when you are crying so I restrain myself to bodily hugging said sign and walking on into the clouds.

Luxmore hut reveals itself around a bend in a shallow bowl. Though well designed and utilitarian in aesthetic the hut still manages to blend into the hillside and I realize upon our arrival that I have made it here within the time estimate that the DOC gives for all hikes. So then, perhaps I am getting faster, even if it’s only just a little.

Day 2

Keith and I are only 50 meters above the hut when the first helicopter thump-thump-thumps its way into view. With clearly practiced precision it touches down on the pad, disgorges its few passengers and plummets down off the ridge before another helicopter rumbles its way over the ridge. We watch as the same routine repeats itself again and again until all the day hiker tourists are huddled on the porch of the hut, rotor was whipping their hair. Then, as soon as it all started the hills fall silent to the sound of the fierce mental birds and Keith and I are left to begin our first climb of the day.

The climbing is hard today, of course it is. But the route is exceptional, the views even more so, and that makes the whole thing easier. From any given high point one can see the trail snaking into the distance along ridge top and through scooping bowl. A little slice of brown dirt dancing across the sky. The scene is almost too grand to comprehend the scale of what we are seeing. That is, until a little human backpacker on the ridge brings bearing on perspective and we realize how far there still is to go. So go we must. And in the later half of the day I actually manage to pass someone! It’s such a minor and ultimately meaningless accomplishment but I am more than happy to revel in those moments like the finisher of some epic race.

And then it’s all down hill. Literally. Keith and I pass a couple more people before the descent begins and then we are racing down the switchbacks as fast as we can if for no other reason than to feel our bodies work without the required dependency on our lungs. The beech trees return, treeline dropping like a final curtain call beneath which we’ll spend the rest of the day and the rest of the trek.

Day 3

Keith and I are wading through hip deep water in one of our classic shortcuts that will invariably take much longer than if we had just stayed on the trail. Still, after hours spent walking the rolling hills and deep forests of the Kepler Track the flat sands of Shallow Cove were too enticing to ignore. From the short beach we can see our third and final hut, Moturau. It looks so close, we’ll just follow the beach along. Well, that is until we find a massive fallen tree blocking our path and a forest too deep and dense to cut through. So it’s into the mercifully warm waters of lake Manapouri as we cut around the large tree. I can hear Keith behind me laughing as I half-sing my anxieties about the deepening water and mushy lake bottom. And once we’re around the tree we keep walking through the water because why not. Sometimes hiking is boring and sometimes it’s full of strange moments and laughing at nothing much at all.

The first thing I want to do when we arrive at the hut is get back in the water. It’s a rare thing to find a mountain lake that’s actually warm enough to enjoy swimming in. And, as an alternative to sitting on the humid shore with the biting sandflies, there’s really no contest. We stow our bags and strip down to our boxers, leaving damp shorts and sun shirts to dry. Then it’s in to the water where I stand for a long, long time. Letting the sun nuzzle against the bare skin of my chest while inside I do backflips of joy around the simple fact that I will never have to wear a damp bra ever again, never ever ever again. I keep my back to the shore because I don’t want to think about the people standing there and what they are or aren’t thinking about me. I just want to stay in this one for a while longer, until I can feel my skin start to redden and I am forced to once again don clothes and return to the land and the realm of my fellow hikers.

Day 4

I wake in the middle of the night and reflexively slap my foot against the bite of a sandfly. Or, at least I think it’s a sandfly, hard to tell in the dark, maybe it’s just one of my existing bites itching me. Everything is itching me so I do what I can, pull my tights on and my sleeping bag around me and fall back into a fitful sleep.

When I awake again it’s morning and half the bunks around us have already cleared out. Today is the last day on the Kepler Track for most of us and it would seem that folks are ready to be up and done. I can hardly blame them. Four days of hiking and three nights sleeping in communal bunk rooms will have most hikers ready for a town day. Keith and I forgo breakfast, holding on to our hunger for a few more hours and a proper meal in town. Today we only have a handful of miles to the bridge at Rainbow Reach and our waiting car. The track is mostly flat except when it climbs in and out of river drainages—which are more frequent than my tired legs would prefer. But when I stop the biting sandflies find me and so I push on and on. Keith drops back to read a sign with Simon and a pointless flare of competitiveness strikes up inside me; I want to be the first one back to the parking lot. Or, said another way, I’m bored of hiking through the trees and I want the reward of real food. So I press on and my knees protest. Every small climb becomes an obstacle, every steep downhill a mincing dance on sore knees. I’m checking my maps almost as often as I check over my shoulder for Keith.
At last, finally at last I see the Rainbow Reach bridge over the Waiau River and the parking lot beyond, just as I’m sure I hear Keith’s voice behind me on the trail. I hit the bridge at a pace that would make an Olympic speed walker proud and quickly discover that the bridge feels far sketchier under foot than I would really prefer. But at this point it’s irrelevant, the car is on the far side of this bridge and soon so am I. I fling my bag onto the ground and strike a relaxed pose on a bench just as Keith hits the far side of the bridge. My feigned nonchalance is betrayed by my racing heart but in this moment it doesn’t matter at all. Because I, dear reader, I am the fucking winner of a race against no one.

At last, finally at last I see the Rainbow Reach bridge over the Waiau River and the parking lot beyond, just as I’m sure I hear Keith’s voice behind me on the trail. I hit the bridge at a pace that would make an Olympic speed walker proud and quickly discover that the bridge feels far sketchier under foot than I would really prefer. But at this point it’s irrelevant, the car is on the far side of this bridge and soon so am I. I fling my bag onto the ground and strike a relaxed pose on a bench just as Keith hits the far side of the bridge. My feigned nonchalance is betrayed by my racing heart but in this moment it doesn’t matter at all. Because I, dear reader, I am the fucking winner of a race against no one.