Milford, Kepler, Routeburn (MKR) 2025

DAY 2. KEPLER

https://www.strava.com/activities/16539595058

23rd November 2025

The Kepler trail is 60km, and this was rather frightening, and the madmen from yesterday (Will and Barnaby) were already tender and pulverised. We strategised for hours and eventually came up with a cunning plan to shorten it by 9.5km by getting our car relocated between two carparks.

We set out at 9am with no time pressures and I felt great as we left the control gates and jogged along the Te Anau foreshore.

The footing was soft with leaf fall, unlike the hard rocks of the Milford.

I was getting some rubbing on my lower lower back, so Nev kindly administered some taping first aid, with an unhealthy amount of enjoyment. This completely cured the problem, at the minor expense of much ribbing and the promise of eventual hair removal.

We worked our way around the lake and started up the climb to Luxmore Hut.

This was uneventful, except that Barnaby's knee was troubling him and this persisted throughout the rest of the MKR. This injury slowed him down, especially on the downhills, but had the nice side effect of making our journey a little slower and hence significantly easier!

There were some cheeky kea at Luxmore Hut, including one that nearly got away with Will's bag containing his credit card, lol!

Lunch (on each day) for me was a couple of slices of vogels slathered with honey. Pretty great. I was also eating a muesli bar or picnic or banana every hour or so and drinking copious amounts of water (about 4..5 liters per day)

We climbed on up past Luxmore Hut along the ridgeline, where we were treated to even more fabulous views! before we hit the snowline briefly (the snow was melting fast).