Milford, Kepler, Routeburn (MKR) 2025
DAY 1. MILFORD
21st November to 24 November 2025
https://www.strava.com/activities/16529941908
With Will (the vilified-and-eventually-praised goat), Neville (the I'm-never-doing-that goat) and Barnaby (the lets-run-faster-till-we-break goat).
After months of planning, dreading and training (except for Barnaby), the MKR finally arrived.
Our plan was to run the Milford (53km, 1500m), the Kepler (60km, 2200m) and then the Routeburn (33km, 1350m) on consecutive days. This was a rather terrifying prospect.
We flew down on Friday morning, with Will swooping in from the USA to join us at Queenstown. We hired a car and drove down to Te Anau to our nice home-away-from-home. Barnaby only visited one unknown household on the way there.
It was raining hard.
Once it dried out, we wandered around Lake Te Anau.
Saturday morning we were up early. The air was cold, even in Te Anau, and ice chipping was required.
We drove around to Milford Sound to get the first water taxi. Unfortunately (?) part of the Milford track was not yet open (after avalanche damage), so we changed our plans from an A to B into an out-and-back run. This was of great relief to me since it meant that I could potentially slack around and not exhaust myself before the other two upcoming day!
Plus the weather gods smiled on us!
And the run began as we jogged along the Milford track.
The day was cool and sunny, and although the track was a bit rockier and technical than I expected, it was awesome to work our way up the river valley and see the beautiful waterfalls cascading down the sheer cliffs.
We got up to Dumpling Hut after 18km of fun jogging, although it did take a bit longer than anticipated. This was my predetermined turn-around point, although I was sorely tempted to keep going onto Sutherland Falls. I was *not* tempted by the chance of reaching Mckinnon Pass, which was not looking feasible given our time constraints (back to the last water taxi at 16:30). Naturally the logic of this assessment did not deter Barnaby and Will from deciding to try to reach the Pass, but Nev and I made the wise decision to rest a bit and then just walk along for lovely views of Sutherland Falls.
There were Weka
There were rivers (the Arthur River)
So Nev and I ran and walked back to Sandfly point, conserving our strength for tomorrow. As 16:30 approached, it was clear that Will and Barnaby were gong to be cutting it a bit fine. They eventually arrived at the boat with 5 minutes to spare, having failed to reach Mckinnon Pass and then smashing themselves to pieces racing back down to the boat's deadline. Nev and I were unbelievably smug about our life choices, lol!
An awesome day out!
Home via Kia at Homer Tunnel :)
Comments
Post a Comment