Thursday 26th March: High Cloud, Sunny and warm 10°C to 18°C.
Day in Te Anau: Lay Day - time to rest up ready for Milford Track
Accommodation: Lakeside Motel
Severe Weather Warning for Milford Track
It rained and rained and rained
Drying the washing in the sun
Beautiful sunny day in Te Anau
Highlight of the day was going to the movies. First to see the brilliant documentary called Shadowland about Fiordland, then in the evening, another movie, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
It's 8am when we awake to a warm sunny day. Plenty of time to cook a pot of porridge in the microwave. We bought 1kg of oats yesterday especially for the Milford Track. Our washing which has been hanging all night in the bathroom is still wet. After tidying up, a stroll into town along the lakes edge takes us via several sports stores - all very expensive - to the Cinema. There’s only four of us watching the movie called Ata Whenua - Shadowland (pronounced "ata-fenua”), a 32-minute documentary film about Fiordland National Park in New Zealand. The cinematography is spectacular. It makes us want to start the Milford Track sooner.
The movie lasts 40 mins and we emerge to visit the nearby Sandfly Cafe where we have the nicest one shot latte in the warm sun. The Fresh Choice is just across the road and we spend an hour topping up our supplies. We'll need to carry at least a 2 kg of food each for the next 4 nights on the Milford Track. Our shopping spree included bread, tomatoes, dried bacon, milk, cream and 2 x Back Country packets of Dehydrated Mince, more peas, and a bottle of wine - Syrah. We choose the plain old mince as we've realised we've been waking up puffy since eating the MSG salt laden pea and ham soup. Best to add our own condiments to plain mince.
A leisurely stroll back to the Motel along the lake in brilliant sunshine. Our washing is still wet so we discreetly hang it on the outside chairs while we have rice cakes and cheese for lunch. At 2pm, we're off to the DOC hut again to pick up some brochures on other tracks that make up the 9 Great Walks in New Zealand. They have a weather forecast on the board. Tomorrow is fine, Saturday, Sunday and Monday cool with showers. Doesn't sound good, especially when we see photos of hikers on the Milford track wading through deep water on their way to the Dumpling Hut, our 3rd day on the track.
A lazy afternoon tidying up our packs and trying to make room for our four days supply of food. The Aussies versus India in the World Cup match is on, but not on TV - No NZ team - so no coverage. Dinner is a really nice steak with mushrooms, lettuce and tomatoes, and I cook enough steak to take for the next two nights. Since there's no cricket on TV, we may as well wander up to the movies to see the Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. No need to hurry, it's only the local theatre. Wrong! When we arrive at five minutes to eight, there's only two seats left and they’re in the front row. We sit like star gazers craning our necks while looking up to the huge screen. There's even an intermission to replenish the oldies wine and cheese. A great movie.
Home to bed whilst I am thinking about getting a Thermos Thermocafe to take on the walk since we have no jet boil, but on re-looking at my already chocker backpack, decide against it. We do WiFi to check the cricket scores. It's midnight when I turn out the lights after deciding Australia couldn't lose as India still needed 100 runs with 18 overs to go