After spending a rainy day just in the kitchen of our campsite in Manapouri, we had a beautiful Wednesday to get to Te Anau. During our long day we found a free spot on a campsite on the Kepler Track which is one of the Great Walks in New Zealand which you usually have to book months in advance. With just one spot left, we did not hesitate and booked one night on the track campsite which is usually meant to be a 3-4 day hike but some reviews said it would be possible to do in just two days as well. Our backpacks are just 30 and 25 litres, so taking large amounts of food and equipment would not be possible anyway. We decided to rent a smaller two-person tent for the track as our usual tent would be way too large and heavy to carry while hiking. Just before arriving in Te Anau, we thought why not ask a local whether we could pitch our tent somewhere, hoping we could also leave our other bags, bikes and gear while going on the track. The first house we approached was amazing already with the guy living there offering us to camp in his garden. His name was Don and he is 84 years young as of now. He keeps 21 sheep and two alpacas on his paddocks and is still so vital and active.

With 30km and about 1400m of elevation to cover during our first day of hiking on the Kepler Track in front of us, we got up early and were lucky that Don drove us to the car park where the track starts. In the beginning we walked through some wonderful rainforests with ferns, large trees and a lot of moss. After about one hour the climb started which lead us all the way up on Mt Luxmore and into the mountains. With every metre we got out of civilization and into more wild environments. At about noon the weather cleared up and we had some wonderful view from the mountains into the surrounding Fjordland Nationalpark. With only few people on the track and the vast countryside around us, we had an amazing day. Just before starting our descend down into Iris Burn valley and to our campsite, Jonas' painful thigh came back and got worse with every step up and down. To make matters worse, it started to rain and we arrived at our campsite after about 10h on the track. There we pitched our tent, had some cold baked beans for dinner (no space to carry a stove) and got to bed at about 8pm. It kept on raining during the night but after such a long day we were not to be bothered by it.

The next morning was pretty chilly so we had a sandwich for breakfast in our sleeping bag and got back on the track again. The weather is always a mixed back within Fjordland Nationalpark but we were lucky and could even see some blue sky peeking through the trees. The whole day had us follow the river Iris Burn down the valley and we enjoyed the quiet and mysterious-looking rainforests a lot. In the early afternoon and after 16km of hiking we reached the last hut on the track and tried to have a longer break there. Unfortunately, all the sandfly on the shore of the lake made it impossible to relax so we decided to just get going again and the finish the track asap. By then our legs and feet were pretty heavy and sore and we just wanted to get out, making the last hour a pretty challenging experience. When we finally crossed the bridge to the car park, we were pretty much done with and were lucky to find a local who gave us a lift back to Te Anau. Back at Don's place we got a shower, Vroni returned our rented tent and we sat down to rest after these two long days. We ended up getting to bed early and fell asleep straight away.

With our heavy legs it was hard to get out of our tent in the morning but we had to get going as we had the next two days planned out already. Within Fjordland Nationalpark there is the very famous Milford Sound that is this impressive Fjord that you can get a cruise on. We managed to get some cheap tickets for a cruise at 9am on Sunday which meant that we had to book a night in a hostel in order to be there on time for the cruise on Sunday. With 120km of narrow, busy and hilly road, we decided to take Saturday to hitchhike into Milford Sound, spend the night, get on the cruise in the morning and then hitchhike back to Te Anau after the cruise. With that plan in mind we got to the city and tried to find a car to take us to Milford Sound. Just about half an hour this German guy Philipp stopped and offered to take us there. We had a nice chat in the car and shared a nice day going on some different walks in and around Milford Sound. The scenery there is very impressive: Steep and high hills, rivers and impressive waterfalls. In the evening we had dinner together, shared some stories about our traveling and then got to bed in our dorm room.

Sunday had to begin early as our cruise on the fjord would start at 9am already and we still had to walk half an hour to where the boat would leave. Once we arrived there we found out that the boat we booked was damaged and that we got upgraded onto a larger boat from a different company. On this boat you did not only get the cruise but a warm breakfast buffet was included as well which meant we got a massive second breakfast and we did not need to eat our sandwiches – awesome! The cruise itself was amazing, with mountains of more than 1000m sticking out of the water nearly vertical. The weather was not perfect as ther were a lot of clouds and some light drizzle but it could have been much worse as well. Our luck did not end there but we also had a large group of dolphins passing by our boat as well to make our morning even better. The 90min of the cruise just flew by and it was very worth it, even though it was very busy and touristy. Just when we got off the boat we started asking people whether they could give us a ride back to Te Anau and just the second people we asked said that they still had two seats left. On the ride we had a nice chat with Reuben and Jason, one local guy from Queenstown and his friend from Australia, before arriving back in Te Anau in the early afternoon. On our way back to Don we grabbed some fresh groceries and had a very chill afternoon in Don's living room, drinking tea, chatting and sorting out all the photos and videos from the last days.

From there on we are planning to cycle to Queenstown and Wanaka, getting back into the mountains before crossing over the Haast Pass down to the West coast.

All the best greetings from New Zealand,

Keep cycling,

Vroni, Droni & Joni