We got up and had our instant oat breakfast. By this point, The Students were up. So was Ranger Sally who told us the bad news.
This is a very frequent problem on the Milford track. In fact, it can flood so much they will airlift you out by helicopter! Full disclosure: I was hoping for this worst case scenario so I would get The Bachelor-esque views of the mountains rather than having to climb up myself.
Too bad, the rain stopped and all the hikers were given the green light. The eager ones practically ran off and me and Lace geared up. We pulled the rain covers out of our packs; if you're unfamiliar, it's essentially a rain coat for your bag.
Go figure, mine smelled horrendous. I unfolded it and was met with the stink of sweaty, smelly plasticy vinyl. It wasn't as bad as my shoes in Sydney, but bad enough for me and Lacey to start singing about Smelly Pack to the tune of Pheobe's Smelly Cat. Thank goodness the rainy weather was short lived. I shoved that cover back into my pack and prayed for no rain... not because I wanted sun, but because I couldn't handle Smelly Pack for three days. No.
We got a good taste of all kinds of fantastic sights all morning.
We stopped for snacks, photos and rests along the route. After a few hours, we lunched among the sand flies and I discovered one of my new favourite candies, Jet Planes. We rationed one small bag over three days between the two of us. That's as impressive as the landscape.
The alpine, rainforest and prairie sections of the route brought different birds in our path, literally.
On my camera, and not on my iPhone, are pictures of the elusive chicken-duck. He has the face of a duck and the run of a chicken. He also has the eyesight of a fruit bat so he practically ran into us before he realized we were standing there. I'll upload those pictures later.
The afternoon felt long and the last hour was uphill. The quads weren't happy with me. One of The Students caught up to us and aptly questioned, to no one in particular, "does this site even exist?!"
Eventually, there it was. We wasted no time claiming bunks and getting dinner going. We made a massive pot of cheesy, chickeny risotto and wondered how we would pack the leftovers away. This problem no longer existed when we decided we would just eat it. Lacey and I agreed that in this situation, it's better to carry weight in your stomach.
With a lack of cards and no board game in sight, we did the next most fun thing we could think of.
You'd be surprised at how hilarious long division and fraction multiplication can be when you're tired.
After verifying a few answers with a calculator, we decided that was more fun than we could handle for one night and we called it a day two. Day three was the big climb so a solid sleep was beyond necessary, especially given my lack of sleep the night before.
Bring on the Mackinnon Pass.
