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APRIL 14, 2003
these are summary notes to replace them: 3/04/03 - 3/11/03)
3/04: Left Hong Kong at 9PM and had an 11-hour flight to Auckland on a very full plane. No place to stretch out, but watched some good movies and slept a bit.
3/05: Arrived in Auckland, took a bus to the city and checked into a hostel. Typical city hostel, a bit rundown but okay for one night. We were in a 4-bunk room with a young guy and young woman and each of us had our own key to the room.
Shari and I went for a walk around the city and then to Wendy's for dinner. I went to bed pretty early because we needed to get up for an early shuttle (4:15AM) ride back to the airport. I got a really good classical music station on my radio so it was nice to fall asleep listening to music.
3/06: We got to the airport very early and collected our big packs that we had checked in to the "left luggage" facility when we arrived yesterday. We then checked our luggage through to Queenstown. We had 2 fairly short flights (Auckland to Christchurch and then Christchurch to Queenstown), and arrived at Queenstown airport about 10AM.
We took a bus to Queenstown, checked our backpacks at the information center and wandered around town for a couple of hours before we got the 3PM bus to Te Anau. We picked a great place to stay in Te Anau - the Te Anau Backpackers, a lovely hostel right across the street from the lake. Beautiful setting. Shari and I got to stay in a trailer out near one of the back buildings of the hostel, and it was great. Two twin beds with lots of room to spread out our stuff. We got to use the kitchen and bathrooms in the building near us. The kitchen was great - lots of dishes, pans, etc. with a large table in front of a big picture window. We talked with quite a few people staying there and everyone was interesting and nice. We didn't eat out in Te Anau - we would just walk up to the grocery store, buy food and go back and cook at the hostel. An inexpensive, pleasant way to eat.
3/07: Walked around town and picked up our Milford Track tickets at the Department of Conservation (DOC) office. We also took a walk around the lake almost to where we will start the Kepler Track on 3/12.
3/08: We were able to leave some of our stuff at the hostel while we hiked the Milford Track and we also made reservations for when we finish on the 11th. We got the 9:30AM bus at the DOC to take us to the wharf for our boat ride on Milford Sound to the start of the track. The bus driver gave some interesting commentary on Te Anau. It has a normal population of around 3,000, which swells to 10,000 in the summer months. Biggest industry is tourism followed by deer farming (they raise deer for the velvet on their antlers as well as for the meat).
We got the 10:30AM ferry from Te Anau Downs to Glade Wharf and what a spectacular ride it was. Milford Sound is unbelievable with the big mounains on either side coming right down to the water, and the water is crystal clear. I think the ferry captain said it was 99% pure and it sure looked it. I hope my pictures capture some of the beauty I saw, but I know they will never do justice to that kind of scenery.
We got dropped off at Glade Wharf (which was nothing but a small wharf in the middle of nowhere) and started hiking about noon. We only had a one-hour hike to our first hut - Clinton Hut. Only 40 people a day are allowed to book onto the Milford Track. You can move along the track only in one direction and you can spend only one night in each of the 3 huts on the track. They are very nice huts. Roomy bunkrooms, nice kitchen facilities (gas cookers and you can drink the water straight from the tap) and bathrooms with flush toilets.
The Milford Track is 53 km (about 33 miles) and is rated as easy to hike. Note: sometimes I will use kilometers versus miles and meters versus feet, depending on my source of information. To convert kilometers to miles, multipy by .62; to conver meters to feet multiply by 3.28.
There is no reception on my radio out here, so it is great to have the MP3 player that Dick gave me. It's very small (about 3" square) and you can get additioal tiny chips for it that also hold music. I loaded 34 songs onto the player itself and 68 more songs onto the chip before I left home. I took a cross-section of music from my various CDs. My music covers quite a variety of musical styles with selections by Rod Stewart, Steve Tyrell, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Nancy Wilson, Sara Brightman, Diana Krall, Judy Collins, Steve Goodman, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Pavarotti, Paganini violin concertos, selections from Sleepless in Seattle and Bridges of Madison County.
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