Day 10 Sunday, Sep. 05 -- McKeller Hut to Te Anau
Synopsis
We woke up to a couple of inches of snow on the ground. We hiked back to the van, stopping at Key Summit to see an absolutely spectacular 360 degree view of the surrounding mountains. We drove back to Te Anau where we got a new set of chains and spent the night.
Detailed Journal
Turns out that we both woke up a few times in the middle of the night because we were, of all things, too hot. After a rough night, we woke up to a brisk morning. While still in our sleeping bags, we fixed some pita bread with BP&J for breakfast. Despite being quite warm in our sleeping bags, getting out of them was a fairly unpleasant experience. We got dressed quickly, packed up our stuff, took a quick picture and headed out. It had snowed a couple of inches over night, but cleared up nicely, which made for a very pretty scene. We took a couple of photos of the hut and headed up into the bush to try to find the trail to a mountain known only as “1538” (probably it’s height in meters). After searching around rather aimlessly for a while, we decided to not continue up into the bush without a path, for fear of not being able to find our way back if we needed to. So, we went back down to the hut and followed a different path that turned out to be a hunting path that lead to a field. Although the views were quite nice, we quickly decided that this was not our path. We finally decided to just head back on the path we came in on, towards the Howden Hut.
The tramp back to Howden Hut went quite a bit slower than the same portion the previous night (2.25 hours vs. 1.75 hours) since we weren’t worried about losing daylight and we also stopped to take more pictures. The walk through the forest was beautiful, with water raining down from the trees from the melting snow (although it was a fine, clear day up above). The water sprinkling from the trees onto the lake made for a really cool effect that looked like countless shimmering diamonds on the lake surface. Looking up from the lake, the surrounding snow covered mountains could be seen, a stark, fascinating contrast from the lush green temporal rainforest that we were walking through. As we trudged on, we were both feeling exhausted after a rough night and the blisters on Lynette’s heels were really kicking in, but as we approached the Howden Hut, we both agreed that the extra jaunt to the McKeller Hut was more than worth it. The experience of it alone was worth it, but on top of that, the mountain views were awesome and the tramp through the trees was one of a kind.
We stopped at the Howden Hut briefly for a small break and to adjust Lynette’s blister pads (turns out she had one about an inch square on her left heel and one the size of a nickel on her other heel), then we were off again because we quickly got cold. We snapped a few photos of our originally planned overnight hut then started the brutal climb up to Key Summit. The first 15 minutes traced back what we had come down the afternoon before, then we headed off the main trail that led up to Key Summit. About 30 minutes later we had reached the start of the Alpine Trail, which was a half-hour walk around Key Summit. We were both exhausted, but refreshed by some of the best views of the trip so far. There was a 360-degree view of the snow-capped mountains of Fiordland that surrounded us. At 906 meters, we were significantly higher than the valley below us, but dwarfed by the mountains that surrounded us. We could see down into the valley that stretched between the Howden and McKeller Huts that we had trudged a couple of hours before, and across from that a great view of the mountains that we had admired from below.
Despite being warn out, we couldn’t resist the temptation to take a short diversion to an overlook of Lake Marion, where we built our September snowman. We snapped a couple more shots then let gravity take over as we started our downhill journey back to the van. On our way down, we passed by the point where Lynette pointed out “God’s blank canvass”, and sure enough, he had finished the painting. We took the identical picture as the previous afternoon, but this time instead of a grey backdrop, it was a stunning mountain panorama.
When we got to the van, we both plopped down at the sliding door of the van and took off our boots, which was a feeling of great relief. We threw our packs in the back and headed for Te Anau to notify the DOC ranger that we had made it safely from our tramp to Howden Hut. We stopped along the way to take a picture, and a lady in a car behind us pulled alongside to let us know we had left a pair of tramping boots behind and that we should hurry and get them before the Keas do. Apparently Keas are notorious for putting holes in people’s boots. We drove back up and to our relief, Jason’s boots were sitting there, untouched in the parking lot. We grabbed them and headed back down the road, not knowing that the half-hour detour would make us miss the open hours of the DOC. We were only a few minutes late, and luckily, there was a ranger still there closing up. We got her attention, let her know we were out safely, and paid her our $20 fee for using the hut.
We then headed over to the Visitor’s Center in quest for our missing snow chain. They called the Work Infrastructure Yard, but no luck. So, we headed for the authorized Maui Rentals Service Center (a local gas station), and they gave us a loaner set of chains and said we’d have to work out the missing chain with Maui when we turned in the van. We stopped at the grocery store to stock up on another weeks worth of food. We also picked up a variety of small (personal serving size) bottles of New Zealand white and red wines to sample during our journeys. We hurried along so that we wouldn’t miss the sunset that was brewing. We finished before the sunset colors had disappeared, but by the time we got checked into the Te Anau Top 10 Holiday Park, we had missed it. Turns out that the Spa was also booked for the night except for a spot that opened up in about 10 minutes, but we decided that there was no way to get showers in before that and we were much too rank to get in without showering.
We parked the camper and Lynette cleaned up from our backpacking tramp and made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup while Jason washed the foul smelling clothes we had worn on our tramp. Dinner was absolutely delightful after the previous night we had experienced and we couldn’t help but giggle as we ate (it was THAT good)! After dinner, Lynette did dishes and we crashed hard.
Pictures
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