Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Day 3 and 4 on the Milford Track

As we had suspected the next day dawned foggy in the valley and that helped to turn this into a magnificent day. We didn’t die today, but we did feel like we went to heaven. For as we climbed MacKinnnon Pass, the fog gradually lifted and we were above the fog. It was like magic.


coming up through the fog and then being above it and looking down at the valley with the fog in it.







After 15 zig zags(switchbacks to us) we arrived at the memorial to Mackinnon to be greeted with hot drinks by one of our guides.
Then on to the lunch hut and the high point of the pass.
From our lunch spot we could look back at Pomplona lodge and see the route we had taken. After having been in the bush, we were now in the high alpine tundra, with majestic mountains and glaciers on some of the high peaks. This was a glorious place to be.
looking back up at the pass as we head down to Quinton Lodge.
We thought it might have been easier to have a hang glider to get to Quinton lodge as we could see it from the pass, but we did the conventional thing and walked, seeing beautiful falls along the way and a trail which was engineered with steps so there was no slip sliding around the muddy tracks. We arrived at 3 PM, plenty of time to make the 45 minute walk to Sutherland Falls. These falls are 580 meters high( a meter is a little over 3 1/3 feet). They are magnificent.


Dinner usually was around 6 or 6:30, but this evening it was delayed as we waited for the last of our group to come in. Among the last was Betty, who at 78 was making this trip 41 years after her first tramp on the Milford Track.
The next day was a 13 mile tramp out to Sandfly Point. It was not so glorious as this day, and when we reached the point it had begun to rain. We boarded a boat there and headed to Milford Sound and our last night of the Milford Track trip. It was sad to see this trip coming to an end, but we knew that we had ahead of us a boat ride on Milford Sound.

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