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 it extremely expensive to book the mandatory huts (or campsites around the huts) that you must stay in while backpacking the tracks.
We chose to do the Kepler Track. It’s a 40 mile hike which starts in lowland beech and 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!
Here’s a photo gallery from days 1 and 2 of our trek …
Day one. Miles of beech and fern forest. Absolutely beautiful trekking!
Our first nights camp was on this beautiful beach on Brod Bay, Lake Te Anau. Unfortunately, we learned that sandflies suck &$$!!
But, it was a beautiful sunset
Day two. The trekking was much more strenuous as we hiked up through rain and clouds to the tree line …
Luxmore Hut, our day two final destination, is barely visible through the clouds
The next morning found Luxmore Hut bathed in sunshine!
The views over Lake Te Anau and Mount Lyall were stunning!
We took a short hike without our backpacks to the summit of Mt Luxmore. More amazing views over Lake Te Anau and Luxmore Hut.
Here’s a photo showing the summit of Mount Luxmore in the distance. It’s the highest elevation of the Kepler Track at 4,829 feet.
Mealtime in the Luxmore Hut common room.
Our bunks for the night. Cozy, but a crazy amount of snoring from the two dozen or so exhausted trekkers we shared the Hut with!
Here’s a gallery of photos from days 3 and 4 of our trek …
Day three, up into the high country …
South Fiord, Lake Te Anau, on the Kepler Track. It’s difficult to judge scale by a photo, but note the tiny figure of Angela at the bottom left of this pic.
Angela at the Forest Burn Shelter, one of two emergency shelters along the Alpine section of the track
More photos of alpine grandeur above the South Fiord of Lake Te Anau, on the Kepler Track …
The alpine section of the Kepler Track maintains an elevation above 4,000 feet for about 5 miles. The Kepler Track, Fiordland National Park
Angela finally descending steeply down into the Iris Burn Valley.
Here’s the view of Iris Burn Hut from our night three campground in the Iris Burn Valley
We took an evening walk to a nearby waterfall. Supposedly, if we waited until dark there was a good chance we would have seen Kiwi birds … but we were way too exhausted for bird watching!
Day four. Miles and miles of beech and fern forests again. 16 miles on our final day out, to be exact!! Pain …
… and delirium set in after around mile ten.
We took a brief pit stop at the Moturau Hut, which was all booked up. Hence the brutal 16 mile death march to our car.
