The general gist of our trip was this: Jen and I flew to Queenstown and made our way to Te Anau, which was the start of our Milford Track backpacking trip. After that we headed back to Queenstown, met up with our friend Anne, and drove up the West Coast of the South Island. I kept thinking "at some point this place has to be less beautiful, more boring, something!" But in reality, every single day was full of more natural beauty that one could possibly hope for on a road trip. Rather than attempt to explain it, pictures and explanations are posted below. There are so many pictures and I've already posted too many below, so this post is just focused on hiking the Milford Track. Stay tuned for pics from the rest of the trip.
To give you some context for where I'm talking about, here's a handy graphic I borrowed from the internet:
First, we took a bus from Te Anau to Te Anau Downs. Then we had to take a boat across Lake Te Anau to the start of the track. There were probably 30-ish other people doing the hike, in addition to me, Jen, and my friends Liz, Spike, and Patricia.
Backpacks loaded and ready for four days of hiking:
Here's a picture of the hut from the first night. It was kind of crazy, because you're in the wilderness and then, bam, you stumble upon buildings, each with a park ranger. Ranger Laura was my favorite because she knew the Maori words and history for everything. Ranger Sally could chop wood like a badass. And the third ranger, I can't even remember his name, cause he was kinda unmemorable.
Epilogue:
We spent our first night off the trail at the Milford Lodge. Maybe it was just cause I had spent four days eating from my backpack, but the food and wine were SO good. The next day we took a cruise in the pouring rain (which is much more typical of Milford Sound). We saw hundreds of waterfalls.