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SUB NOTE: HAVE ADDED PHOTOS. LOTS TO MAKE UP FOR THESE BEING THE LAST ONES. ENJOY! x

(This is a long one guys, you have been warned - New year, mad jumping, Milford and an epic walk all in one. I was going to mention that you would be rewarded your reading efforts by showing you lots of photos, but alas I've misplaced my USB wire after the last blog, so sadly there will be no more photos - which I'm actually quite sad about. I can still transfer photos to CD though with weird things known as chip readers, and will be doing so in a couple of days, so watch this space as I may be able to get some posted from CD...).

A jump, a bang and a whole new date!

Simon Wadsworth
2006-09-04 17:31:23

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yet) - there aren't many places one can see entire mountains, like Mitre Peak, ascending right from the sea to the clouds, plus all the mountains had a fresh new beautiful topping of icing sugar from the previous day. This is possibly why Rudyard Kipling described Milford Sound as the 8th Wonder of the Natural World. I was also pretty lucky in that it didn't rain at all, this being one of the wettest places on the planet; 3 times as much as Singapore and over 6 times that of London - 6500mm. Absolutely superb and a day trip I'd recommend to anyone visiting NZ.

Finally, to complete my stay in Te Anau, I decided to do a 'small' day walk on some of the Kepler Track. Time has run out unfortunately so I was disappointed
I couldn't do the entire track over 3 to 4 days, as I had originally intended. Nevertheless, I thought I would do a small taster, just to the top of the Luxmore Mountain and back down. But on walking up, my legs carried me quicker than I thought they would - woo! All these physical activities these last few weeks have not been in vain. And thus it was on the walk up that the now well-known to you 'Simon's seed of stupid ideas' was planted - "I wonder if I could walk this in a day?" - But it wasn't a complete spur of the moment decision, more of a spur of a half-hour decision as I sat with trusty blue calculator in hand, working out realistic estimates of how long it would talk me. The answer was 11pm, so I just kept going..and going..and.. Walking over the Kepler Mountains was fun - my final major taste of snow in the form af an all-out blizzard on the mountain pass which was thus apparantly closed, although a number of trampers and myself never saw the sign. Walking through deep snow I descended the other side into beautiful old moss-covered
The Hobbit's room...little dwarf, big dwarf? Full Image
forests and valleys for the remainder of the walk. I must admit, the last few hours were a real struggle when I began to realise the idiocy of my idea, legs just moving as if on a motor you can't switch off, needing a torch for the final hour (which thankfully I bought with me, using it for a cave earlier), and getting to the hostel at midnight, with the hugest grin across my face.

One of New Zealand's 9 Great Walks, 60kms, in one day. I still can't believe it. But it was worth it just to see the look on people's faces when I told them what I'd just done. And that's that - another story to tell the grandchildren. Unfortunately, because of the blizzard there was no views of the mountains but the track was still really beautiful. My ankles have still to forgive me though, and will take time to de-bruise, so I'm walking round like a cripple at the moment. This may well be my last blog I write in New Zealand, as I'm currently in Edinburgh..well, Dunedin (Gaelic for Edinburgh) and then on to Christchurch to fly. However, I refuse to conclude from this country just yet, as there's two more big things left to do - saying 'hello' to penguins and crashing a plane.

So until then, Happy New Year. Sorry for the long blog, and sorry there's no photos, but please check back in a couple of days as I will try and transfer some from CD - and some are really quite fine! Bye bye.. x