Hump Ridge and Kepler Tracks

So the last two weekends I did two different hikes- the Hump Ridge track on the south coast of the island and the Kepler track in the mountains between lakes Te Anu and Manapouri. I’ve been hiking 6 out of the last 8 days, doing the Hump Ridge last Saturday through Monday and then Kepler starting Thursday and going through this Saturday (today). Both tracks have a high ascent on their first days, going up above the tree line to spectacular views of the surrounding areas. Last weekend Rob, Xander, and Heather (the other owners of the car) all had things going on so I had the car to myself. So it worked out really well when Andrew and Carrie, people also on the Arcadia program with me, contacted me about doing the Hump Ridge track. We took my car to Tuatapere (the town about 20km from the trail head) and stayed at a hotel there. At the hotel bar, we tried some of the Invercargill Brewery Pitch Black, a gold medal winner at the New Zealand Brewing Awards according to an article we read in the Southland Times. Then we hit the trail on Saturday morning after checking out. After we got to the first hut we dropped our packs and went up to the lookout point on the mountain above the hut and watched the sunset over the higher mountains to our northwest. On Sunday we hiked along the ridgeline for a few hours and got some nice views of the ocean to the south and a glimpse of fjordland to the north before descending back under the tree line. The second hut was just off the south shore line and we basically just sat around ate and played some cards. On Monday we hiked back out along the coast and back to the car. The first two days were 19km each and the third day was just a bit less at 17km long- the first day, however, ascended from around 0-700 meters over only about a 3 hour hiking period. It was a sweet hike, or tramp as it’s said here.

Then I had 2 days back in Dunedin where I went to class, rested my legs, played a bit of golf, etc. Then on Thursday Rob, Xander, and I left early to start the Kepler track, one of the 9 New Zealand Great Walks. It was glorious, sunny weather starting out and we had lunch at a little shelter on the shore of lake Te Anu, before starting our ascent to just under 1000 meters. We got to the Luxmore Hut relatively quickly, doing the trail up in about half the book time. The view from the hut was incredible, overlooking Lake Te Anu and mountains all around. The second day (Friday) we started out at around 9am and hiked for several hours on the ridge line. We stopped at Mt. Luxmore, the high point on the trail, and dropped our packs to ascend the summit, which gave us an awesome panoramic view of the surrounding area- pretty much mountains on every side. It was indeed epic. When we got down from the top of the mountain and back to the trail we were accosted by a roving gang of Keas (mountain parrots). They pecked at some other hikers packs that went up to the Mt. Luxmore summit after us and one tried to land on Xander’s head, which was pretty humorous. After reaching the end of the ridge line trail we descended back under the tree line and got to the Iris Burn Hut a little after 1pm. After eating lunch we decided that since the weather was supposed to get worse on Saturday that we’d just do the second and third days in one day. We hiked about another 16 km to the Moturau Hut through a decently flat river valley. We ate, played cards, and finished the bag-o-wine we carried in with us. Then on Saturday we hiked out back to the car along the Waiau River. It did rain and we were glad to be off of the trail. It’s been a glorious several days of tramping through the wild but it’s good to be in Dunedin again eating and watching world cup rugby. Team USA has not won a game yet, but we’ve still been cheering.