Break Adventures: day 3

The next morning we got up around 7. The weather was miserable as we ate and packed up, snowing raining and gusting wind. Just as we left the hut to check out the caves the sun began to break through the cloud cover. I was totally overwhelmed by the beauty of this scene. It reminded me so much of the view from Hermit House in Vermont.


I couldn't get that grin off of my face for a good few minutes.

We walked over to the caves leaving our packed up stuff at the hut. I had read that these caves were not particularly fantastic but I was pleasantly surprised by them. I really enjoyed the caves because they were my first real caving experience. I have been in caves before but only the kind where you walk on bridges and pay money. I wish I had taken a few more pictures down there.


We ventured back to Luxmore Hut from the caves in the snow to get our packs and then flew down the first bit of the Kepler Track. I don't like going downhill quite as much as I like going uphill. I find it harder on the knees and I like to go slower. That said, it actually took a roughly equal amount of time for me to get down to the car as it did for me to get up to the hut the day before.


We went to the DOC in Te Anau and handed in the slip so they knew not to send help after us the next day. We asked about doing a similar "walk to a hut and walk out" thing with the Routeburn great walk and found out that it was safe to get to the first hut on that path too. We drove out to Milford sound to get a look at what my grandmother told me was an amazingly beautiful area. It was a really excellent bit of driving down there. The road sometimes closes as snow tends to avalanche across it. I took a photo of one place it had clearly done just that.


Though the weather was a bit unfortunate down at the Sound, it was still a remarkably beautiful island gem.


We drove out of the Sound noting the time and a bit worried that we might have to do some hiking in the dark to get to our hut (we had planned for this). Unfortunately, we somehow missed the place the hike started by a good 20 minutes and so we began the hike 40 minutes later than we had planned. Here's a photo of us getting ready before the walk in the rain at dusk.


And a photo taken when we stopped so we could get our headlamps on. I had never done backpacking in the dark and it was really quite fun. And to top it off, we were tramping in the rain too! This is exactly the kind of thing I would find exciting.


We got to the hut and had some dinner. Here's some of mine:


And just a glimpse around the hut.


One of the coolest parts of hiking at night is that the next morning you get to figure out where the heck you are :)