The Kepler Track is one of New Zealand’s nine ‘Great Walks’. The Great Walks network was established in 1993 as a way to advertise, manage and conserve the most popular backpacking walks in the country, which were being increasingly damaged by unrestricted tourism. They now strictly regulate the number of hikers that can go on these tracks. They have also made them extremely expensive to book the mandatory huts, or campsites around the huts, that you stay in while on the tracks.
We chose to do the Kepler Track. It’s a 40 mile hike which starts in lowland beech & fern forests, than climbs up and along alpine ridges before dropping back to forested river valleys. We spent 4 days and 3 nights on the trail. 4 days and 3 nights of extremely hard, dirty, sandfly infested … yet beautiful and wonderful hiking!
