Day 2: Luxmore hut - Irish Burn hut: 19 km
 It is dry, there is no wind and the day does not get any better than this. That clouds stubbornly cling to the mountain tops… well, you can't have everything. I wait a moment for it to clear up, but when the view remains foggy, I set out around 9 a.m. I look down on the entrance to the South Fjord, with its spherical islands whose rock was so hard that the glacier couldn’t break them. I can only see backwards, towards Te Anau, but deeper in the fjord everything remains hidden. Pretty soon after the hut I have to climb again. As I walk the flanks of Mount Luxmore, I'm glad the wind isn't blowing. I would not have liked to walk here with gusts of wind of 60 km/h. Still, it is a pity that you can only see about 100 meters. When I get to the trail to the top of Mount Luxmore, I don't hesitate. A gray peak shrouded in clouds. There is no reason to go up now, except to say that you have stood on the 1,472 meter peak. And that is not enough for me, I hike on without looking back. Every now and then there’s a brook or a board walk across a piece of fragile ground. On the way to Forest Burn Emergency Shelter, the route drops below the cloud cover and the gray landscape regains its color. I see the water of the South Fjord and to the left of the path a brown depth with the blue ribbon of an elongated lake. Then the path ascends again and the world disappears behind a white curtain. Still, the mist also has its beauty. Sharp rocks contrast black against the white backdrop. As I get higher, the vegetation gets scarcer, until the tussock, a kind of tough grass, really has to look for places to live. Large streaks of black rock interrupt the blond living carpet. A succulent plant strikes me, a sphere of yellow-green circles that looks very cheerful in the gloomy landscape. Every now and then I come to a rock avalanche, where life really stops. And then I see an explosion of flowers on a rock, large, creamy-white flowers with an orange heart protruding above solid cloth-white wreaths. It is a special sight, a summer bouquet in a landscape that seems so much better suited for the winter. The ranger said it yesterday: you have to appreciate the small, because big things are no longer here. Less than 700 years ago, this was the habitat of the moa, at three meters high the largest bird ever. Until the arrival of the Maori, all they had to fear was the Haast eagle, which had a wingspan of 2.6 meters. The Maori ate the meat of the moa, used the bones to make fish hooks and the feathers for decoration. Not long after the Maori exterminated the moa, the last Haast eagle also died out. As hikers we are spoiled here, because even at this height the trail is easy, with the occasional few stones to keep you alert. The orange posts point the way and because the view doesn't look like anything, you don't have to pay attention to anything else. Slowly the mountains fall away, until I hike across a narrow ridge while the earth on either side is hurrying to reach sea level. Still, I am not nervous. The fog hides the depth, causing the path to lose its fear. I notice how utterly quiet it is. No birds, no planes, no voices from other hikers. I hear only my own footsteps, the scraping of one of my trekking poles against a stone, my breathing. At a fork at the bottom of a mountain top I hesitate for a moment. Nothing is signposted and I suspect that the most hiked path around it leads to the other side. But I'm used to following the orange snow posts and start climbing. With every meter I ascend, it seems to be getting warmer. At the top I stop and take off my backpack. Time for lunch. I can hear voices in the distance and I suspect the Hanging Valley Emergency Shelter not too far away. My lunch consists of a muesli and a fruit bar and two handfuls of raisins. Of course I would have preferred just a cheese sandwich, but unfortunately that is none too practical. After a while I get cold from sitting still and put on my backpack again. Via a slippery mud path I reach the main trail again, where a number of hikers look at me in surprise. I pass the shelter, across a narrow ridge again. Then the path starts to descend. First gradually, then there are wooden stairs which bring me lower at a rapid pace. The steps are covered with chicken wire, another sign of the care and attention the DOC pays to its trails. Some stairs even have a handrail, which is actually unnecessary. I notice that I haven't seen ermine traps in a while, but with so few birds above the tree line, the predators have no business here. At another useless viewpoint, the path descends in tight zigzags along the stone slope. Slowly I walk into the tree line, where the whimsical moss-covered shapes are even more haunted in the mist. The trail leads me down so steeply that I begin to feel my knees despite my poles. In a short time the path descends about a kilometer, while I always stay on the same piece of mountain wall. Still, I am happy to be in the greenery again. The pink triangles that indicate the traps also appear regularly along the path. And eventually the visibility gets better too and I can see the Jackson Peaks, the other side of the valley, where a narrow waterfall plunges hundreds of meters down. A bridge leads across a smaller waterfall and still the bottom of the valley is not in sight. Then the forest becomes lighter and the path passes the place where there was a landslide not so long ago. The rocks are still white where the earth has been washed away. A scar of up to a kilometer long, where all the trees have disappeared. A birch on the edge has only recently given in to gravity. It is the only tree there, the others have been carried along, further down. The path zigs and zags and then leads across bare rocks. I look up at the place where the forest has collapsed and now a green stream flows. When I look down, I can still see some soil in the depths, but the trees are gone and nothing new is growing yet. A bend further I am again at the landslide, a little lower now, and look up again at the hikers who walked where I just stood. They seem so small, very strange how fast you descend. As I continue, the path levels out and I can walk normally again. I occasionally hear water and for the first time I come across a bench along the path with a view of the opposite mountains and deeper treetops. After half an hour I still arrive at the hut. I claim a bed and spray on deet, because biting sand flies are numerous here. And then I hit the road again, a lot lighter. A side trail of 20 minutes leads to the Irish Burn Waterfall. It is a nice trail through the forest, following the course of the Irish Burn upstream. The rippling of water slowly gives way to the roaring of an oncoming train. It’s the waterfall which is quite short, but because of last night’s rain it flows like about twenty firefighters extinguishing a retirement home. The thundering is overwhelming. There are no Blue Ducks, unfortunately, but I sit on the rocks for a while. Without a backpack and the effort of climbing it’s  soon quite cold. Time to return to the warm embrace of the hut. Eat, sleep and tomorrow a new hiking day. And as this path is slightly longer than most, it isn't even the last! Two more days of hiking fun. Wonderful.

Day 3: Irish Burn hut - Moturau hut, 18 km
Many hikers today hike all the way to the end or take a taxi to Te Anau a little earlier, at the Rainbow Reach parking lot. However, the village is quite small for a tourist town and everything you can do there is expensive. That is why I changed my planned rest day into a hiking day and added an extra stop in the Moturau hut. While many people set out just after sunrise, I sleep in until the sun is well over the horizon. When I leave lazily just after nine, the mountain tops are covered in clouds. Fortunately, I am now underneath them and am able to enjoy the beautiful views Fjordland has to offer. The path starts to climb quite quickly from the hut. However, these are little stretches compared to what I’ve already had. I notice how many birds there are in this forest. All morning I am accompanied by singing, alarm calls and meaningless squeaks and twittering. It is quite a relief after the dead silence of the previous forests. Last night I even heard the brown kiwi calling and the morepork, a small owl, was noisily present. Now it is mainly the fantail which lives along the trail, a funny little bird the size of a great tit. It has a white tail with a black stripe in the center that it can unfold like a fan, which is what gave it its name. The fantails are not shy and regularly come to see me up close (or to chase me out of their territory) and occasionally fly along in the shrubs next to the path. Sometimes they change direction halfway through their flight, as if they had yet to figure out the best place to land. Unfortunately they are just too shy to be photographed. There are also other sounds, birds that I don't know yet. Maybe the tomtit or the rifleman? I regularly cross a stream, always provided with a sturdy bridge with a sign indicating how many people it can carry. Somewhere an official was very careful, because you can't convince me such a sturdy wooden bridge will collapse if more than one person uses it at the same time. As I climb higher, the forest changes character. The ferns that colored the bottom green give way to moss, but it is still very green, so many shades, so many shapes. Forest never bores me. Until now, the forest has been surprisingly clean, as the DOC has a strict policy that anything you take, with you will take you back to civilization. The huts do not have waste bins and supplies are brought in and out by helicopter. Today I come across annoying debris twice in quick succession. First, the wrapper of a muesli bar, which I tuck in a pocket to throw away in Te Anau. Then a red tube with some German medicine, which a hiker ahead of me must have lost. Maybe I'll meet him or her on the trail, or else in the hut tonight. The tube also gets a spot in my backpack. After a while the path descends and I exchange the trees for a piece of open grassland, dotted with rocks, tussock and low bushes. On the opposite mountain I see what New Zealanders with an almost British sense of understatement call ‘The Big Slip’. The scars of a landslide in January 1984, when part of the mountain side gave way after an unusually heavy rainfall. The wedge is still clearly visible in the landscape. Very high the bare rocks, where all the earth has been washed away. Slightly lower are the small trees, which try to survive on what little soil they have left. I am deeply impressed. It was almost thirty years ago and you can still precisely trace the path of the landslide. The consequences are more difficult to trace at the bottom of the valley. There are huge rocks, yes, but aren’t there always? Moreover, they are covered by a carpet of fine, white moss, which is also impressive in itself. After crossing the plain, I dive into another tree tunnel. Slowly the clouds disappear and it becomes a beautiful day. I am happy for the people who are hiking the ridge today and can enjoy the views I could only imagine. And yes, I kind of envy them too. The trail continues calmly, the rumble of the Irish Burn constant in the background. Sometimes there is a small side trail to the water and over and over I look to see if I might see that rare whio, the blue duck, that is said to be hiding at rapids. Unfortunately without success. I am amazed at the contrast between the wide river flowing with force, but which you do not expect to carry whole trees, such as those on the rocks, many meters above the current water level. I can see from the lichen on one of the rocks that the water is at least two meters higher in the spring than it is now. When I then remember the Irish Burn waterfall, which already flowed so powerfully, I can indeed imagine the power of the water uprooting and carrying trees. After an hour or two I reach Rocky Point, where I first encounter a DOC labor camp and then an Emergency Shelter. However, this is more of a covered picnic spot than the shelters with avalanche shovels, shovels and pickaxes that I encountered on the ridge. However, the shelter is in the shade and I choose a path which takes me to the river. On a rock there are two other hikers and when I ask if the tube of medicine is theirs, they are happy to get it back. I put down my backpack on a sandbank full of deer tracks and enjoy the warm sun. I don't feel like continuing, but in the end the sand flies are too much for me. Deet keeps them from biting, but they still swarm uncomfortably close around me. Back into the woods then. The river is constantly showing different faces. Sometimes calm and broad, with graceful reed plumes along the bank, sometimes narrow and sturdy and full of dead wood. The trail follows the Irish Burn until it reaches Lake Manapouri, a beautiful lake surrounded by impressive mountain peaks. The original name for the lake was Moturau, which means ‘many islands’. However, an early map of the region erroneously referred to the lake as Lake Manapouri, a corruption of the Maori name for another lake, Manawapora, meaning ‘mourning heart’. The route follows the edge of the lake until I reach the hut. Again beautifully situated, on a sandy beach and with a paradise view of an endless variety of mountains. And sand flies of course, but that’s New Zealand for you.

Day 4: Moturau hut - Te Anau, 22 km
 This time I am one of the hikers who decide to start the day early and get up before sunrise. I am having breakfast while it is slowly getting lighter outside and the promise of the sunrise lures me back to the beach swamped with sand flies. The sun peaking across the mountains first colors the clouds and then the tops an impressive red. It is a wonderful start to the day and I reluctantly leave this idyllic place. The route takes me back into the forest, where the path turns around Shallow Bay. After half an hour a board walk leads to a viewpoint over Sphagnum Moss Bog. In the center of the swamp area is a small lake, which was created when the melting glaciers left behind the entrained rocks, which formed a dam. A piece of ice left behind also melted and the lake was formed. However, the lake is not very impressive and soon I return to the path. The route is mostly flat, with the occasional climb just for fun. Then I reach the bank of the Waiau River, which ends in Lake Manapouri. I follow the river upstream, enjoying the views I am presented with when the trees give way. On an island in the middle there are again dead trees and I wonder how much more powerful this river will be in the spring. Where it is wide, the river flows unimpeded and silently. Only at the narrower sections, curtailed by rocks on the bottom, the water is forced into rapids and its force is audible. A huge suspension bridge leads to Rainbow Reach, the parking lot from where the taxi vans drive to Te Anau. A number of hikers are already waiting on the other side of the river. I keep hiking, because although this day consists mainly of forest, I don't want to miss any of it. Mushrooms appear here and there and yellow leaves lie under my feet, a sign of the approaching autumn. Yet the wind is warm and it is wonderful to hike. I gradually start to feel my right hip, despite the trekking poles.Every now and then you can see where the path has been diverted, the disused paths closed with branches, stones or planks. And the new path usually goes up where the old one fell. Sometimes a landslide is the reason, because this close to the river the ground easily gives way. I hear a motor on a stretch with lower vegetation. Two DOC employees are busy filling a trolley with caterpillar tracks with gravel to improve the path. I personally prefer solid forest soil, with or without roots, but thank them for their work. Around 11.00 am I think I’ve had enough. When a path curves to the shore and there is a beautiful sitting spot among the bushes with a view of the river, I take off my backpack and enjoy the sun for a while. Not too far I hear a car door slam and an engine start. It could come from the other side where there is a road. But I suspect I'm not too far from the Control Gates and the main parking lot. After a few turns I can see the dam and know the end is coming. I swap the flowing river for the waves of Lake Te Anau. Around the lake, past the Wildlife Park and to the Fiordland Visitor Center to pick up the tickets for the Milford Track. This trail is over, the next adventure already awaits.

View my pictures of this hike here.