Friday 27th March: Sunny but slightly overcast - Morning 10°C, Afternoon 20°C
Glade Wharf to Clinton Hut: 5k: 2pm to 3.30pm: 1hr 30 mins
Accommodation: Clinton Hut
Ferry from Te Anau Downs to Glade Wharf
Memorial for Quinton McKinnon
Across lake to Glade Wharf
Foot wash for didymonas
Start of Milford Track
Walking beside the Clinton River
Wetlands boardwalk
Stony bed of Clinton River
Ranger Ross gives a lecture
Highlight of the day was simply starting the famous Milford Track. During all our travels in the French, Austrian, Swiss and Italian Alps, we often asked – “But have you done the Milford Track?) And my answer is no. So it was time to do it to see why it was so special.
A lazy morning. After a cup of tea and a large helping of microwaved porridge with cream, it's time to pack, or should I say re-pack. I've asked for late 11am departure from the Motel to give us an extra hour before we leave for the DOC hut to catch the bus and they’ve obliged.
Time to shower and clean up the room and have one more cup of coffee with real cream. At 11am, we walk over to the DOC hut to fill in an hour reading about the history of the area while waiting for the 12.15pm Tracknet bus to take us to Glade Wharf. Donnald Sutherland was a Scottish-born explorer and the first European settler in Milford Sound and in 1880 he was the first European to see Sutherland Falls, which he named after himself. The falls are 580 meters tall and drop from Lake Quill to the Arthur Valley. Quintin MacKinnon came to Milford Sound from the Shetland Isles in Scotland and soon became one of the area's pioneering settlers. He became the first Milford Track guide, and fittingly the 1,000-metre-high pass was named after him.
The Tracknet bus duly arrives with a trailer in tow for all the back packs. It's full of Milford Track hikers all going to the same place. It takes 25 minutes to drive along the lakes edge to the wharf at Te Anau Downs, where the ferry is waiting to take us to Glade wharf. There's a mixture of guided walkers (easy to guess by their name tags) and freedom walkers (the scruffy looking ones) on the ferry. It takes 1hr so time to have lunch on the boat - lettuce, mayonnaise, fresh ham, rice crackers and cheese - followed by a crisp Braeburn apple. The ferry stops for a moment as we pass a Quinton Memorial, near where his boat was found minus him, 4 years after he was appointed as a Milford Track Guide.
At 2pm we're at Glade Wharf and everyone has to tromp through buckets of disinfectant to wash the didymonas off their shoes. A quick photo shoot and we're all off. There's only the odd sandfly buzzing around when you stop walking so hopefully there’s not too many on the track – wishful thinking!
The track is wide, level and has defined edges of moss. It's also very dry, but we're expecting rain all day tomorrow. It's easy to follow the clear stony Clinton River and after 20 minutes we're at Glade House, the first stop of the guided walkers. There's markers every mile (the tradition of the Milford Track is to use Miles), but the posts are also marked with Kilometres. There's a short detour to the wetlands along a duck board walkway. So much rain falls along the track - the average is 8 metres per year. The whole area is a continuous swamp – any wonder it’s renowned for sandflies!.
At the 3 mile mark we arrive at 3.15pm at the Clinton Hut. There's 2 bunk houses, and we quickly check each out to grab the best bunks down low and away from the entrance to avoid the foot traffic in the middle of the night. At 4.30pm, Ranger Ross, a lanky 6 foot 6 inches, takes us for a 1hr guided tour explaining about all the birds, surrounding mountains and river catchments, but we're glad to finish as the sandflies have started to swarm.
Back to the hut for a quick wash from our doggie bowl, then a magnificent dinner of left over steak, mushrooms, tomato and mashed potatoes and a glass of our Syrah which we have poured into two plastic water bottles. At 8pm, there's another lecture by Ross, and soon after we're off to bed. It's not a cold night as we're still down in the valley