The Wettest Walk on Earth

Rainbows on the way in
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Well. This was another long walk. And reading through the brochure exentually I came to understand that we'd get rained on. Average of 2 days out of 3 raining, and we were going for 4. With an average rainfall of over 8m, we were going to get wet at some point.

So, out came the waterproofs and a change of warm clothes to be added to our packs, and a rudimetary waterproof cover for our packs fashioned from old bin liners and duck tape, to keep the warm stuff dry, else it would be cold. We were all ready to go!

The easy part
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The first day was easy, with a boat ferry doing most of the work for us as we cruised through the beautiful lake Te Anau, with the fjords on either side, and once again amazed at the captains knowledge of the waters we were passing through. Apparently we could drink the water straight from the lake, it testing on average 99.7% pure, and normal city water being nowhere close to that. Once we got to the land, there was a short walk to the first hut.

The photos can speak for the scenery. It was awesome, and the two hours passed in moments. The huts were all great, with good cooking facilities, and plenty of reading material, on the birds of the park, conservation projects etc, and it was all interesting. And best of all, we'd made the first day without rain.

The only dry day
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If we'd thought about the 'first day without rain' thing a little more though, it was not all good news. Two out of three days it rains, and we'd had one clear day, the next two weren't looking good! When we set off it was raining, but the report said it should clear by midday. We misled ourselves for a while under this impression, as we skirted puddles that were already shin deep. After another two hours, the rain had gotten harder, and it was no longer possible to skirt the puddles... When there is shoulder high vegetation or rock on both sides, and the water is up to your knees there's nothing to do but wade. The water by the way was about 7 degrees centigrade. Not warm! So we felt silly for trying to keep the water out of our boots earlier. And it was a bit of a shock to have to walk through water this deep, but, well, it was becoming an adventure.

So green
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When Andrea almost stepped on an eel that was over a meter long things started changing. The water seemed to be coming up much faster, and the puddles were now long streams, and we were going upriver. The puddles had also reached crotch height on me. The novelty of the adventure soon wore off... And then Andrea stepped off one of the paths into the drainage ditch on the side. The path at the time was waist deep in water, so by the time we'd caught her, the pack with the dry clothes was a little wet.

and foresty
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The second day took forever to pass. Quite the contradiction to the first day.

At the hut we found out that most people were actually expecting to cross rivers, so we didn't feel quite as bad or unprepared (we'd also forgotten the torches and lighter too...) When the ranger gave us the talk about the next day he also told us that it was the wettest that they'd let it get before cancelling the walk, and that if fewer of us had set off when it got bad they would have. Also that there was 120mm of rain in 4 hours or something like that. The rivers and paths that we were walking through have a catchment of a gazillion square meters, so it was  a lot of rain.

Carnivorous plant
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The third day dawned foggy and raining, and with it's own problems too. Today we'd have to walk over the mountain that stood between us and our final destination. So up we went, and then after narowly avoiding being blown off the top by the gale force winds (that have blown off the previous 4 huts that have been built on top of the mountain) down the other side. Unfortunately my camera got foggy. There was so much water everywhere, and all my clothes were so wet, that I couldn't even dry it. So some of the breathtaking scenery looks like it comes from a wedding, and the rest is unfortunately not even captured. It was amazing. Roaring waterfalls (heading down to the next day's walk hehehe) and the steep sided cliffs, with the fog coming and going as we walked through the clouds. Really worth getting wet for.

Spider's nursery
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The last day was somewhat ironic... Our destination was sandfly point. We needed to catch a boat, but we didn't want to get there too early! I also have a moral issue with having a target called sandfly point after the millions of bites we were both sporting.

The weather was clearing, but still wet, and the scenery was once again breathtaking. The camera was still not dry, but better :) There was a good sense of satisfation seeing the sign at the end of our 33.5 mile walk, but there was also an urge to remain for a while, to frink in more of the gorgeous scenery.

Oh it did rain
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Thankfully we had a while in Milford Sound (the town) to get more!