New Zealand -The Dusky Track

An account of trekking on the Dusky Track in New Zealand in December 1990.

Transcript

Episode 4, The Dusky Track, New Zealand

Hey everybody, and welcome to the fourth episode of my podcast, “Goin’ down the road with Randy”. Tonight we are going to visit the wet wilds of New Zealand.

Our visa in New Zealand allows us 60 days to explore this other land down under. We bought a car at auction in Auckland and drove all around the country, which is primarily 2 islands - the unimaginatively named, but geographically correct, North Island and South Island. Our car was a yellow Ford Escort wagon about the size of a really small Subaru hatchback. It had 165,000 miles on it and we paid $600 NZ (about 400 bucks) for it. The first trip out of Auckland we found that it had a leaking gas tank. But, after a quick trip to the junkyard for a salvaged one we were in business with a great little car! Two months later when we left for Australia we pass it on to a friend of ours with a promise to pay us whatever he got for it - we basically broke even.

Let me say right now that the number one cool thing about New Zealand is the haka. Just Google, “New Zealand Haka” and watch the video. Maori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand.  The haka is an ancient Maori tradition to challenge an enemy. It has been adopted by modern New Zealand sports teams for a perceived competitive advantage.

We came equipped to take advantage of New Zealand’s natural wonders and bought a hut pass from the Department of Conservation – the New Zealand equivalent to the National Park Service in the US. The hut pass was good for a year but a bargain at 60 New Zealand dollars, which are roughly 2/3’s of a US dollar. Then, we went “tramping”, what we in the US call “backpacking”, but the New Zealand trails (known as tracks) have an extensive hut system so you don’t have to bring a tent! We thought of it as free lodging, so stayed in as many huts and did as many tramps as we could. In fact, in our 2 months in New Zealand at least half of that time was on a track somewhere.

We did many of the well-known hikes, known locally as “tramps”, the Routeburn, the Kepler, the Caples, a Tongariro volcano circumnavigation and the Abel Tasman in sea kayaks – the notable exception being the Milford track, but that one seemed far too popular for us anyway – you were required to book it in advance and change huts every day and we were just not into all those rules and regulations.

After cutting our teeth on these tramps we ask everybody, “Where is the most remote, most challenging track in New Zealand?” We think we are ready for it. The answer is always the same, the Dusky Track. Located on the southwest coast of the South Island in Fjiordlands National Park, the Dusky averages 10 meters, or about 400 inches, of rain per year. We are soon to learn what this means for a tramper on the track. Remember, the track is the trail, the tramp is the hike, a tramper is a backpacker. There will be a quiz later.

The Dusky Track is 84 km, about 52 miles, long and has seven huts, eight if you count the one at the West Arm of Lake Manipouri but that one is hardly used. The Dusky involves crossing two major lakes, three major valley systems, two mountain ranges and leads to Fjiordland’s longest fjiord, Dusky Sound. The Department of Conservation says to allow 8-10 days to complete the tramp. Experienced trampers have warned us to take no less than two weeks’ worth of food, more if we could carry it.

The track is shaped like a “T” with the Loch Maree Hut at the intersection. (A Loch is, of course, a lake.) The eastern arm of the T ends on the shores of Lake Hauroko where there is a hut, but no road, all access is by boat only and that boat needs to be pre-arranged. The western end of the T lies at Supper Cove on the Dusky Sound where there is also a hut. The bottom of the T has a small hut and a ferry service on the West Arm of Lake Manipouri. Our plan is to be dropped off by chartered boat at the hut on Lake Hauroko, hike to Loch Maree and on to Supper Cove, back to Loch Maree and then exit north over the pass to take the thrice-daily ferry across Lake Manipouri back to civilization.

We park our car in the town of Te’Anau and stop by the DOC office to fill out our required “Intention” forms (basically saying where we planned to be and when) and load up our stuff to hitchhike to Invercargill on the southern coast of the South Island, where we will catch a bus to the guy who is going to take us across Lake Hauroku to the Hauroku Burn hut. (Burn is what the locals call a small creek.)

One thing about New Zealand is that the people there are really nice. I mean really genuinely nice. Fun fact, there are about 3 million people in New Zealand and something like 75 million sheep for a sheep to person ration of 25 to 1.  Anyway, we were hitching out of Te’Anau and we find that there is another couple hitching too. We graciously walk past them and then walk back after they get picked up – I’m pretty sure this is the only place in the world where I’ve encountered hitchhiking competition.

A single young girl driving a flashy Toyota Landcruiser stops to pick us up, Gabby is a student at the university in Dunedin and she’s going to Invercargill and not only gives us a ride the whole way but takes us home to meet her Dad! He is a dentist and there is a Ferrari in the driveway. They feed us lunch and afterwards Gabby drives us to the bus station to get our bus to Tuatapere. Imagine that happening in America today. Nope, wouldn’t happen. Ain’t no way.

Val McKay, our boatman, picks us up from the bus station and tells us that for 15 bucks extra we can stay at his house tonight and have dinner and breakfast. We’re all over that and go back to his farmhouse and meet his wife, Helen, and his fox terrier pup, Barnacle. There are two other trampers going to the Dusky tomorrow and we meet Andrew and Gary from Auckland. We have tea and chat and then they serve a huge platter of corn beef, potatoes, peas, carrots and ice cream for dessert. I figure we may soon be facing a survival situation, so I justify eating extra helpings.

We watch a bit of cricket (Oh yay! The cricket is on!) then Greta slyly, yet smoothly suggests the pub. We all go down for a few pints and share “tramping” stories (I know, that sounds like not a good thing to talk about, but it’s not that kind of tramping). Pubs close early in New Zealand so you can get up early and get in a good days’ work, so you gotta drink fast. When we stagger back there are mugs of hot Milo and cakes for a bedtime snack. This place is like staying at Grandma’s! We sleep soundly in big cushy beds, with real sheets and quilts. (We are used to sleeping in hostels in a sleep sack.)

Too early next morning, Saturday, December the 8th we shower and enjoy a huge breakfast and then we’re off with Val. He ferries trampers to the Hauroko Burn hut on the far side of Lake Hauroko every Saturday in his boat, the “Namu” which means “sandfly” in Maori. Lake Hauroko is 32 km long and is the deepest known lake in New Zealand at over a thousand feet deep. The wind is blowing and the waves are kicking up and after an exhilarating one hour journey in which the boat entirely leaves the water at least twice we are delivered to the opposite shore where Andrew and Gary waste no time and are off up the track to the next hut, the Halfway Hut. Greta and I, with packs bulging with food, opt to just stay here for the day knowing that there would be no one coming behind us for another week.

I give Val the last of my tobacco. I intend to tramp the Dusky and kick the habit at the same time. We lounge around eating and swatting sandflies and turn in early. Our apparently naive idea that we would be by ourselves on the trail was rudely shattered before 9 the next morning when a float plane dropped out of the fucking sky and deposited three other people who, without a glance at the hut, took off up the trail. Well hell! That’s a bit “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” now isn’t it? We rolled over and continued sleeping to give them a good head start.

We eventually pack up and start walking and soon discover that the track consists of a nightmarish mixture of bog, roots, stumps, logs, and fern with the odd patch of relatively dry soil. Negotiating this requires a good eye and good balance to skip from one root, over a bog, to another slippery root. We both go down several times. There is mud halfway up to our knees and we marvel at the atrocious conditions. Little do we know that this is the good part.

This section of track has two walkwires. Walkwires are three wires spanning a creek or gorge or other obstacle in a “v” shape and you walk on the middle wire while holding onto the other two. There will be 21 of them to cross on the entire track. I didn’t think they were too bad, but then, I was a pretty good rock climber at the time, so your mileage may vary. I thought the hardest part was getting down from them as they always seemed to end halfway up a tree.

The landscape is green. All green. An entire palette of all the greens you can find. There are giant tree ferns that almost makes you think a goddamn dinosaur or something is going to step out of the muck and come after you. The landscape really has a prehistoric feel to it.

We stop for lunch past the second walkwire and try to eat and kill sandflies at the same time. We have not seen this many sandflies before. The track then takes off straight up a hill, more of a cliff. We use the roots now like a ladder. I am amazed that a swamp such as this can exist in the vertical plane as well as the horizontal and I reckon it is the roots that make it happen.

We finally arrive at the Halfway Hut and are formally introduced to the three Kiwis (New Zealanders) from Christchurch who had the same idea we did of swooping in the day after the boat dropped off so that they could experience solitude on the track. I forget their names. 

There is an uneasy vibe between us (that may be entirely in my own head, but I don’t think so) We plot how to let them get ahead of us and I imagine they plotted the same. We are not the earliest risers so the problem eventually takes care of itself. My journal says, “we have some tea and wash out our socks and make dinner”. I remember reading the hut book and marveled that it was still the original book though the hut had been built in 1969. We fall asleep to the sound of rain on the tin roof. A portent of things to come.

The Kiwis are up and out by 8 a.m., off into the rain like it wasn’t even there. I keep hoping it will stop but when there is no let up by 10, we are ready to go. 20 minutes later we are drenched to the bone. The trail is a river. We reach a walkwire at the Hauroko Burn at about noon and a little later the trail crosses the Burn with no walkwire. But the river is a mad torrent, it is impossible to cross. We look upstream and downstream in vain for a log, anything.

We are very wet, very cold and very bummed because if we can’t cross this stream we have to hike three hours back to the hut we just came from. With the rising river, the falling rain and the hike back we were a little scared as well, but we have no choice. Every stream that we passed on the way up is higher now. In places we are forced to bushwhack because the trail is flooded by the river. Some of the water we walk through is waist deep. The meadow on the other side of the walkwire is now a lake. The only worry I have is of one particularly large stream about a half hour from the hut but we plunge through it ok. We finally reach the meadow where the hut is and this meadow, too, is a lake. In fact, we encounter the deepest water yet a mere 20 paces from the door, over the belly button. We stand there dripping on the floor stunned to be not being rained on. We strip soggy clothes and build a fire. Well, at least we have the hut to ourselves…and the other party is a hut ahead.

The contents of our backpacks are remarkably quite dry thanks to the trash bag trick that we were taught by some dude on the Routeburn Track. Line your pack with doubled trash bags and if you tie them tight enough they’ll even float. Supposedly. Who knows, we may yet have an opportunity to test that theory on this trip! We string clothes around the hut to dry. The meadow is a lake which threatens to come in the door but I’m confident knowing this hut has been here since 1969. We make some tea and some dinner and lay back on the bunks warm, dry, fat and happy and I can’t remember the other three dwarfs but I’m pretty sure we were them too, except grumpy, not at all grumpy.

A small shortwave receiver was our sole means of communication, albeit one-way, and listening to Wellington National Radio it says there are heavy rain warnings for Fjiordland. Yeah, we got that. Check. Heavy rain confirmed.

The next day was Tuesday, December 11th and the rain stopped last night and now, this morning, there are small patches of blue sky. The meadow is a meadow again. We marvel at the difference, the trail is not a stream, the streams are simple to cross, the sun is shining and life is good. We pass the walkwire and the come to the Haurko Burn crossing and it is nothing like yesterday and we skip right across. We climb a long hill and as we pop above timberline it starts to rain again. The alpine tundra is spectacular, and the views are amazing and would be better but for the clouds. It seemed like we were up in the middle of the wind and the weather amid the swirling clouds. The Lake Roe hut is beautifully situated beside a tarn, or alpine lake, called Lake Loffy, and I don’t know why?

We pile in the hut and begin what will become a ritual, peel off sopping wet muddy tramping clothes, rinse them as best we could, wring them out and hang them up to dry as much as they might before we had to put them back on the next day. We changed into our hut clothes, soft, warm and dry fleece.

We want to take the short side hike up to Lake Roe but then the clouds move in and we can barely see our way to the latrine. I string a paracord in case it is like that in the dark. This is a really nice hut and now that we are sure there is no one behind us we are inclined to stay another night. We are still pretty confident of our food supplies and the more we eat the lighter our packs will be!

It begins raining again during the night and it rains all the next day, quite heavy at times. We are safe from flooding on the mountaintop but the next leg is to the Loch Maree Hut down in the valley and is a known flood risk. We must cross a long walkwire to reach the Loch Maree Hut. The walkwire is just minutes from the hut, but access to it may be under water. The Seaforth River at that location has been known to rise almost 20 feet during heavy rain. We won’t know the conditions there until we commit to the grueling 5-hour hike across the tundra then down the side of the mountain with a 3000 foot vertical drop. If the wire is flooded when we get there our only recourse is to bivy under a tarp until the river subsides or climb 3000 feet back up and over to return to this hut. Neither are alternatives that we want to consider. So, we stay. And eat. We put a big pot of water on the stove and have a reasonable shampoo. We have our last can of smoked oysters and ramen for dinner. I try to get the weather but all I seem to be picking up is Radio Beijing.

The next morning, Friday, we wake up to find the weather has changed. It is now snowing! December 13th – pretty close to a white Christmas – in the southern hemisphere! This is comparable to having snow on the 4th of July in the States. We decide to lay low yet another day. We are not prepared or equipped for snow and the more time we give the river to go down the better. We go out and forage for wood and come back freezing and wet and build up the fire and retreat to sleeping bags. It is cold!

We listen to the shortwave and finally get Radio New Zealand. The weather is not hopeful. The whole country is socked in and many places have been experiencing hurricane force winds. They called it a “weather bomb”. We kind of feel lucky to be in our little hut on top of the mountain.

The next day we wake early to rain on the roof, but then it stops, and as we are eating our porridge, we pick out a few blue patches in the white sky. We hike up to Lake Roe and admire the spectacular view of the Merrie Range of mountains – no, really, they are called the Merrie Range, we are standing in the Pleasant Range and looking at the Merrie Range and, no, I’m not making this shit up. I don’t know what kind of sadistic bastard came up with these names and then we get a view of Peak 5610, which looks like a mini Matterhorn and is in deserving and desperate need of a new and better name. I mean…all it gets is a number?

On the way back we gather a bit of firewood and pay it forward by laying a fire in the stove for the next trampers to visit – they’ll probably be cold. And then we head out, we spent 4 days up here!

It seems the moment we leave the weather becomes more unsettled, or is that just my fear and imagination? We get a few really nice views of Peak 5610 as we hike across alpine tundra and right when we approach Lake Horizon the clouds move in and we get absolutely blasted by wind driven rain, oh, hey, we found the hurricane! I think Lake Horizon must be the place where whomever it was got the idea for the infinity pool because the view was spectacular even in the shitty weather. If it was clear we should be able to spot the Loch Maree Hut 3000 feet below, but all we can see is a sea of cloud in the valley.

The moment of truth, back to the hut or go down to the valley, and the way out.

We commit and begin the descent to the Seaforth valley. I have never experienced such a trail, oh, track, sorry, whatever. It is running with water and if it had been horizontal it would have been a stream but now it is a waterfall. In several places it is necessary to use the roots as ladder rungs and face inward to the hill while coming down. The water runs down our arms under our rain gear and out the bottom. Some places have chains hanging for handrails. Worse, some places have tattered ropes that we grasp with grim trepidation. A fall here would likely result in serious injury. Two hours of this. All the while wondering what we will find at the bottom of this hill. The rain never lets up. It is constant.

We finally get to the valley floor and our hearts sink. It is completely flooded! We walk up the trail into ever deeper water with no sign of the walkwire. Once we reach knee deep I suggest dropping our packs to scout ahead. All I can see is water everywhere. We stash the packs but the water is soon waist deep and we have not gone much farther down the trail. Greta is upset when I say we may have to sleep here under the tarp, or go back up to Lake Roe. I too, am afraid of either prospect. If we stay and it rains more the river might force us up onto the track, such as it was, anyway. And I honestly don’t think I could go back up what we just came down. Not now anyway. We explore around a bit more and then suddenly we spy the walkwire! It is just a little further on than we had been. The wire seems to go to an island in the river. I shoulder the packs and wade to the wire. The water is in my armpits when I get there. 

The bottom wire is knee deep in water. I put my pack on, with the hip belt unfastened so I can jettison the pack if I fall in, and go across as quickly as I dare. The walkwire here is built on stilts that form an “x”, with longer legs on the bottom of the “x” going into the river and shorter legs on the top of the “x” that formed the “v” that we have to walk on. I wish I could show you a picture but I was kinda busy at the time and there was no such thing as GoPro back then. The wire is long, it seems a hundred  yards but may have been less and the river is in full flood stage beneath. If I fall off this wire I will be a goner, probably wash out into the Dusky Sound. Greta, meanwhile, is still standing in the cold, chest deep water, afraid to step up onto the wire and increase the strain on it. I deposit my pack on the other side and run back across the wire as quickly as I can and take Greta’s pack, as the last section of wire seems particularly wobbly (it felt like the legs were going to give out). After I make it over again Greta comes across and we discover that what we thought was an island is in fact the other bank and we stumble into the Loch Maree Hut, momentarily relieved to be alive, only to find it occupied by a P.E. teacher from a school in Riverton and 5 middle school-aged kids on a school excursion. Lovely.

For reasons already mentioned we couldn’t seriously consider going back to the Lake Roe hut, but we definitely missed it already. This group has been here for five days and they are very low on food. It is a madhouse. I’m not sure what they were doing when we burst in, but at least three of the boys are running around in their tighty-whiteys. There is a distinct homosexual vibe that may be my imagination, but there definitely is some kind of weirdness happening.

They are equipped with a two-way radio and are in daily contact with the DOC home base. They have been alerted to look out for us as we are at least three days overdue at this point, having spent 4 unplanned days on top of the mountain plus the extra day at the Halfway Hut. We assure them that we are fine, in fact we are in better shape than this group who have been stranded here. But, the trail to Supper Cove is flooded and the track out north is also hopelessly flooded. They have about a days’ worth of food left and have made tentative plans to be evacuated by helicopter.

If they do get picked up the helicopter is 900 bucks NZ which works out to 150 each and will be reduced to 122.50 each if we decide to go. We assure them that we will walk out of here, but thank them anyway. The rain continues. The hut has received almost 40 inches of rain in the last week. The forecast is for more of the same through Monday. Three more days.

We are in pretty good shape, we still have food for at least a week and if weather permits we can walk out in three days. We can also stretch rations out. Spending time trapped in a hut with a bunch of middle school boys and their teacher is not our ideal scenario and we miss our cold hut on top of the mountain, but here we are.

We settle in to wait it out. Supposedly, when you can see stumps in Loch Maree the water level should allow passage. I look out at the smooth surface of Loch Maree and wonder…are there really stumps in there? We make some tea and rice / soup for dinner. We “make too much” and give our leftovers to the hungry boys. I wonder if this could possibly go all Lord of the Flies on us and shudder a bit at the thought.

The hut book is full of tales that sound just like ours, so it is not at all uncommon for trampers to be stranded here, although there are a number of good weather trips documented as well. It looks like we’ll never make it to Supper Cove and fish for the blue cod that are rumored to be caught there. (That was where we really wanted to hang out.) Now, we’ll just have to concentrate on getting out of here on our own which mostly involves, at this point in time, just sitting on our ass, something that I have been told I have a particular innate talent for, whether or not the need might arise.

Saturday - What could that sound on the roof be? If I didn’t know better I’d say that’s rain! It sounds just like the rain we had yesterday except maybe a bit more forceful. We sit and listen to the rain. There is little else to do. Read. Write. The kids are playing charades. “Oh no, I don’t think so, thank you anyway.” Maybe we are being stick in the muds (and we probably were) but this was not in our brochure. Sorry. Should we have ramen or potatoes for dinner? I toy with the idea of constructing a small raft and somehow poling it upstream. Or, perhaps it is time to test the flotation qualities of our trash bag lined backpacks?

Sunday – the school group has decided to bail, thankfully – their helicopter comes at 10 to pick them up. The rain is now intermittent but still heavy at times. The forecast is for “fine weather” tomorrow. They take off leaving us to our own devices which is fine by us. Finally, we are alone again! We decide to stay one more day to let the water subside some more. The Loch is already just beginning to show stumps. We cleaned up a bit after the school group left and found that they had “forgotten” a rather large bag of rubbish. Poor style for locals flying out on a helicopter, I thought.

Anyway, I was stoking the fire and heard a noise and here comes Gary and Andrew! They have been stranded for four days at Supper Cove and are short on food, having been living on fish at Supper Cove. This means that the track to Supper Cove is open, at least for now, do we go for it? Two days there and back. If we could get back and then get out when and if we got back. It is on the cusp of being doable but I am uncertain given the weather we have been having.

Gary and Andrew are taking advantage of the weather window and are continuing on to Kintail Hut today, they want to get the hell out of here while they can. We give them a bag of potatoes  and some veggies as we should have plenty of food, “now that the rain has stopped.” (Who do we think we are kidding?) Gary gives us his number in Auckland and says to call and we can stay with him before we fly out to Australia in about a month. They eat lunch and then are on their way to Kintail Hut, 6 and a half miles up the valley.

We hang out in the hut, enjoying the solitude again and plan to leave tomorrow. 

Monday, December 17th

We have our porridge and tea and study the sky. Where is the fine weather? Cloudy skies and light rain shows no sign of stopping. We pack up and leave by nine thirty. I’m still kind of bummed that we won’t actually make it to Dusky Sound. The track is boggy and typical for the Dusky. We soon encounter some of the obstacles that the school kids told us about, the bridge that had washed out and then we come across a fresh mudslide that covers the trail and is a porridge of mud and sticks up to our knees.

We start climbing through the gorge and the track gets rougher.  We finally reach more level ground near a lake called Loch Gair and we think the difficulties are over. But the Dusky has more in store for us - another large, fresh, knee deep mudslide followed by a network of bogs that we try to pick our way across without in going too deep. We are exhausted when we finally reach the Kintail Hut.

We find the hut is nearly full and the swell of humanity kind of hits us. All of a sudden there are people again. There is a DOC crew of 6 there counting blue ducks and a party of 5 who were headed to Supper Cove and had come from the West Arm. We chat with the DOC people who claim that the bridge that washed out had just been replaced. I confirm that it is not there now. One of the DOC guys mentions that he is in charge of fire prevention for the Dusky and I exclaim, “Fire prevention! Well, that must be the easiest damn job in the department, you all must fight each other for that job - you couldn’t burn this place down with a flamethrower!” He takes the ribbing in stride but I can tell you now that I meant every fucking word.

The Kintail Hut is not subject to the same flooding problems that plague Loch Maree so we start eating our food to avoid having to carry it over Center pass to the Upper Spey Hut tomorrow. Potatoes and veggies and the DOC folks treat us to some real fresh bread!

The next morning we are, as usual, the last two leaving the hut. We listen to the weather forecast while having our tea and porridge. Scattered showers today becoming widespread tomorrow. So, more of the same, I honestly don’t know why we bother, it is obvious we are not going to have a nice sunny day on this track.

We depart the hut at about nine thirty again, we only have 4 miles to go but it is up and over Center Pass. We will be climbing out of the Seaforth River valley and crossing over to the Spey River valley.

The climb is not nearly as bad as descending from the Lake Roe Hut mainly due to the quality of the track. We enjoy spectacular views on the way to the pass, with swirling clouds and the odd patch of sunshine. I’m pretty sure that is the backside of poor old Peak 5610, the vantage is just spectacular. Crossing the pass we encounter high winds and driving rain but just for a little while. We stumble out of the alpine tundra and into the bush again. We are making good time and we almost decide to go for the hut at the West Arm tonight so that we can luxuriate in the hot showers at the visitor’s center. But, when we arrive at the Upper Spey Hut at 3 that afternoon we are too tired to face 4 more hours of unknown track and decide to rest and start fresh tomorrow. Besides, there is no one else here and the solitude is what we came for.  We feel fortunate that we have had 6 days in huts completely to ourselves vs 5 days in huts with other parties. The landscape and the position, particularly of the Lake Roe hut, were fantastic.

We can’t build a fire as there is no wood and no saw. We pass the time alternatively reading and freezing and vice versa. I found a poem in the hut book written by an anonymous Fjiordland tramper in 1984. It was untitled, and read:

“It rained and it rained and rained and rained.

The average fall was well-maintained

And when the tracks were simply bogs

It started raining cats and dogs

After a drought of half an hour

We had a most refreshing shower

And then the most curious thing of all,

A gentle rain began to fall.

Next day was also fairly dry

Save for a deluge from the sky

Which wetted the party to the skin

And after that the rain set in.”

I added a verse:

The rain that came down from the skies

Caused water to rise above our thighs

We were soaked, above and below

When it will stop, we do not know.

Keep it going!

The next day is Wednesday, December the 19th and this is going to be our last day on the Dusky Track. We have 7 and a half miles to the West Arm Hut but we know the track is comparatively nice since the average time for this distance is like 4 hours, so it should be more or less “normal” hiking. It is cloudy again but we could care less about clouds, we are 4 hours away from our first hot shower in 11 days.

We start out at 7, a record for us! The track gives no quarter all the way to the end. The last section is only ankle deep bogs, but has knee deep mud and flooded tracks. In fact, 20 minutes from the road and we are still wading through thigh-deep water. I knew we had made it when there was a bit of gravel on the track, almost as if to lure the unsuspecting tramper in from this side. There is even a wooden ladder over one small steep bit!

We reach the visitor center and share a shower. Bliss! Luxuriance! I never want to get out. Imagine the novelty, the water raining down on us is hot! We came out of the shower to be inundated by busloads of tourists returning from Doubtful Sound. We do not blend in well with this crowd. Where the hell did all these people come from? Our bodies are clean, but our clothes give us away. We don’t care, the boat provides free coffee and tea and beer for a price and we avail ourselves of all three. We disembark the ferry and get on the bus for the short trip back to Te’Anau to retrieve our car. We marvel at all the people bustling about their daily business.

I have done loads of backpacking, and backcountry bushwhacking, the Dusky Track was real and unique and never-ending in its challenges. Between the terrain and the weather we were pushed right to the limit, I mean, if we couldn’t have made it to the Loch Maree hut, I honestly don’t know what would have happened to us but what did happen to us was almost magical. It also proved the truth in some old truisms. 1.) There is no such thing as bad weather as long as you have the proper equipment and preparation. And 2.) the oldie, but goodie, “Good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from poor judgement.” In both cases we did pretty well, mostly due to experience, I think.

Anyway, that’s it for this one, thanks for listening, and we’ll see next time, you down the road! 

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