Most hikers will start the Milford trek at the Glade house, arriving by boat. Tim decided to do a day hike towards the Glade house coming from the road side. This trail requires wading across a river at the very start, then a lot of trail finding and scrambling. I never made it up to the saddle, but did make it about 5 km back. Crossing a stream, I did get a visit from a curious Kea, who stopped to check me out for a few minutes.
Lake Marian trail
We’ve been asked what typical trails are like in New Zealand. They are generally quite good, but range from easy, well marked trails to trails that require navigation and scrambling. This is part of the Lake Marian trail, which is well marked. But this section did require climbing about 4 meters using tree roots. Other sections of this trail are similar. Other, lesser travelled trails are still marked, but require careful attention to spot the trail markers. (which are usually the size of the small orange marker below the large one) Some trails I wouldn’t want to navigate without GPS, as trail washouts or downed trees can make picking up the trail again fairly difficult. Along with the GPS, Deb and I share a pair of hiking poles, which helps a lot for stability in the difficult sections, and takes some of the load off the knees when handling elevation.
Here’s Lake Marian, a very pleasant and relatively short hike. The character of the lake depends a lot on the weather and time of year.
Take a look at another pic I took of the same lake in 2009 during the spring.
Earland Falls
Deb and I hiked towards Earland Falls, but she decided to stop at the Lake Howden hut due to the rain. I continued to the falls, and they are quite beautiful. Just very difficult to get a picture of them, as they tower above, and you are very close to the falls.
Key Summit
We skipped going to Key Summit on the same trail, as we had seen it in 2009 with beautiful weather. I’d highly recommend the Key Summit trail, the picture above is from our 2009 trip.
On route to Te Anau Downs, a stop for lunch, along with a fruit smoothie and a chocolate malt. Bet you can guess who ordered chocolate!
