Day 11: Milford Track, Clinton Hut to Mintaro Hut

Our second day of the hike started out quite precariously.  You see, in the fjordland area, it rains at least 200 days out of the year.  That's a lot of rain.  Check with your local third grader to do that math for you but that's 2 out of three days you can expect rain.  Hiking in the rain sucks!  Hiking through a flooded valley sucks even more.  Even knowing what we were getting into, we still signed up for the hike knowing that we very likely would find ourselves wet and cold.  And we realized that you can't have the full Milford Track experience without at least one day of rain.  (Besides, you are surrounded by a plethora of beautiful waterfalls on all sides as you slog through the mud.)  I will have to admit that when I saw the pictures of fellow trampers sludging through waist high flood water at our first hut, I did start to have some serious reservations!

So, day 1 was sunny.  It would make sense that day two would bring the inevitable.  The weather report on the morning of day two was for rain to come in late morning.  What that meant for us was an early start to our 11 miles we needed to cover that day in an effort to hike as far as possible as dry as possible. 

We made it out of the hut around 8ish and started out at a feverish pace, hoping to avoid the impending rain storm.  Luckily, we finally remembered that we were going to miss all the lush rain forest, bush, rivers and mountain peaks if we spent our entire day trying to out run the rain.  We slowed down to a more humane pace and opened our eyes to the beauty surrounding us. 

We were finally deep into our track.  Everywhere you look offers a feast for the eyes.  There is not one tiny inch of this walk that isn't a visual explosion of beauty.  Today was our first day to finally gain some elevation, however that elevation didn't really come into play until around mile 7 or 8.  And by that time we had aching legs, sore backs and bruised feet.  Plus, the sky was looking ominous.  And when you're feeling that tired and are that ready to sit down and be done with walking for the day, all of a sudden, you don't worry about taking everything in.  We started a death march for our last hut, determined to arrive before the rain started.

We were so pleased when we made it to Mintaro Hut dry!  However, my feet refused to support anymore weight for the rest of the day when I collapsed on the front porch of the hut.  The rains did finally come in that night and didn't stop until well into day 3.  And as it rained all night, I had to get up THREE times in the middle of the night to make use of the facilities ... which was in a separate unit from our bunk house.  ARGH!!!