New Zealand | Day 7 | Kepler Track (Day 3) | Friday, Feb. 4, 2011

Well, the 'ol legs were pretty tired when we woke up.  After hobbling down the stairs to the cooking/eating area, we had a delightful breakfast of muesli with apples and yogurt.  We only had about 11-ish miles on flat ground to go until we reached Moturau Hut, so we didn't get on the trail until about 9, but we were still the 2nd group out the door. The sign outside Iris Burn Hut read 'Moturau Hut - 6 hours', so we didn't expect to get there until late afternoon as we were both fairly sore, and the weather was nice so we didn't have to rush.  Lo and behold, we arrived at the halfway mark (called Rocky Point) by 11:15, had a quick snack of biltong (awesome beef jerky) and granola bars and kept on cruising.

Ferntastic

Switchbacks (zig-zags)

Moturau Hut

Despite having a couple of detours which required us to climb up and down some switchbacks, we still cruised up to Moturau Hut by 2pm.  We briefly considered hiking on to Rainbow Reach to try and catch the evening shuttle, but we didn't have reservations in town, and besides, there was a gorgeous beachfront hut on Lake Manapouri for us to hang out at.  We devoured some Chicken a la King (quite tasty I thought) and chatted with a Danish girl who was travelling all over NZ for 3 months on her own before returning home to start graduate school.  We were both quite jealous, as she planned to just keep on doing tramps all over the country.  The beach was calling, so we pulled out our sweet backpacking chairs (which we had carried the whole way and not used yet) and hung out on the beach for a few hours, slathered in 100% DEET and sunscreen.  Ahhh, nature.


Me on the beach having no idea Clark was taking a picture

 

Clark hanging out on the beach in her sweet backpacker chair

 By 6, I was starving again so I convinced Clark that it was time to polish off the rest of our cheese and crackers.  We sat on the lawn and savored a small block of cheddar with some water crackers, and both of us remarked that the only possible way it could be better was with a bottle of wine, but neither of us had any desire to haul an extra couple of pounds 30 miles for just such an occasion, so we settled for some orange electrolytes instead.  The blackflies were somehow managing to penetrate the 100% DEET, so we took that as our cue to head inside.  I managed to find a 1000 piece puzzle of some quilts, flowers and other nonsense in the corner, so I pulled it out and we started working on it.  An hour after we started, we realized why nobody does puzzles - because they're frustrating.  I worked on it for another hour, and it started getting dark, so I called it quits.  At least we got the outline done.  Meanwhile, Clark had starting chatting with an older Australian couple who were tramping their way all over NZ for a few months in preparation for a trans-European cycling trip they would undertake this summer.  Clearly there were going to be many highlights in their respective twilights.  By the time we were done talking it was almost 10, and we had to be up by 7 to make sure we got to our shuttle the next morning, so we tenderly climbed upstairs and went to sleep.