Not too long later our boat arrived and we were bidding farewell to our kiwi mates and heading back across the sound to Milford Sound (the town).
Milford Sound is very small. As in a population of a hundred or so. Standing outside the bus/ferry terminal where we came in we found ourselves at a loss on how to get to the airport. We just missed a free shuttle bus, and no-one could tell us when it would be back. We asked one bloke who was standing next to a fancy looking 4WD if he was on his way to the airport. He said he wasn’t but pointed us in the right direction to walk there. Very reluctantly we started the trudge towards the airport, and just on our way out we saw the shuttle bus pull back in. Man how we ran to catch that bus, and we made it just in time.
Because we’d spent four days on the track we hadn’t confirmed our scenic flight to Queenstown and were now alone on the tarmac at the airport, completely unsure of what to do. I went off down the road to find a phone to call the flight company with (no mobile reception in Milford Sound), and Bryce and Steve waited around to see what would pop up at the airport.
Turns out we both got the job done, and also it wasn’t long before a string of other people arrived. One fancy 4WD pulled in and Steve said “hey, wasn’t that the bloke who told us he wasn’t going to the airport?” I said “no, close, but that’s not the car. … but that is” as right at that moment the first fancy 4WD pulled in! We quizzed the driver who sheepishly said he didn’t know where he was going before his clients jumped in.

In no time we were on the plane, taking off and marvelling at the scenery. It was great to see all these mountains from above – we paid an extra $170 to fly home in an hour over scenery instead of bus home in 6-8hrs, in a bus. We all appreciated each of these aspects now, and Steve went further by appreciated the steady drone of the engines and falling asleep.
Soon enough we were coming in to land, making our approach perpendicular to the tarmac runway in Queenstown, causing Steve and Bryce to be very awake with “what the hell?” anxiety for a bit, until we touched down safely.

We were never so glad to arrive at a hotel as we were that evening. Long hot showers and time in the spa later we were deciding the finer details of dinner. The hotel restaurant put on a steak and prawn buffet, so that’s where we went - taking much more liberty of the buffet concept than the wait staff would have liked.
We had to break foran intermission though, to return to our room and open our splendid bottle of St Clair White Label Reserve 2005 Sauvignon Blanc. We were sure to drink it out of camp utensils and to video such commemoration. This was truly the end of the track now, it had become mere memory.

Back into the restaurant for desert and then off to bed. But not before putting in a call to Ash to say hi and brag that we were still alive. I also got to talk with Susanne, and even arranged to meet both her and Ash at Christchurch airport where we were stopping over the next day.
Everything taken care of, we gave up our consciousness and drifted around the land of dreams.

Our final day on holiday began well, Steve and I made the plane from Queenstown fine, and as a pleasant surprise even sat just behind a couple of our kiwi mates from the Milford Track.
I met up with Susanne at Christchurch airport where we spend a couple of hours lazing with each other, and later joined Steve and Susan (another Connections lass) at the bar for the last drink of our trip.
Soon it was time to hit customs. Susanne went through while Steve and I paid our departure taxes. Just before we went through Ash rang saying he was on his way out to the airport and to wait for him. I was momentarily torn between holiday romance and holiday mateship, but sent Susanne a message to say I’d be late through and then proceeded to get lost round the airport looking for Steve and Ash. I did manage to find them shortly and we had a grand reminisce and sharing of stories. After a bit I went up to o through customs – skipping the queue and met Susanne. We spent sweet final minutes together. She was the very last to board her flight, and we blew kisses to each other in farewell and goodbye of what was among the grandest of things.

And soon enough it was me boarding, with Steve, the means of returning to ‘normal’ living, having lived a little more outside the standard, and armed with enough of this extra-life to hold over until the next adventure.

We got the jump on dawn, rising in darkness to give ourselves a big head start on the final day. The plan was for Steve and Bryce to go on ahead while I did the washing and cleaning, to improve our chances of making it to the boat on time. The information given by the hut ranger said we could cover the distance in about 6 hours, but for us three the estimated times had always been well under our achieved times, and we had to make sure we reached the end before our boat ride over to Milford Sound left at 2pm.

I enjoyed trekking on my own, it allowed me to go at my own pace, and it was a rest from the child-like banter of Steve and Bryce that had grown on me in the same was the screech of a skinned cat might. Soon enough though I found Steve, but Bryce wasn’t with him. We worked out Bryce must have left even after I, but didn’t wait around for him; Steve was in a solid and stern mindset and he was making that boat no matter what.

Bryce did catch up, and we walked together for a bit until we came to Mackay Falls and Bell Rock where Bryce and I hung around to climb under Bell Rock and Steve powered on ahead.
We met up again at Lake Ada and stopped for a snack. Here too, as on the whole track, it was really obvious that the area was in a drought – the lake was low, just as the rivers and creeks and waterfalls had been. It was here that Steve shared a revelation with us. He had been making great progress all morning – much faster than his usual speed so far, and he attributed this to his realising that his paces were at the same rate as Bryce’s or mine, but they were much shorter in length. There ya go.

We continued on in the same independent manner, getting ever closer and making good time. The beautiful scenery wasn’t letting up though. We ate lunch in a lovely little pocket near the Giant’s Gate Falls, and soon after I stopped in a rockslide zone to get a 360 degree video of the path alongside the river wedged between two giants of mountains.
Not too much further along we came to the ‘1km to go’ sign. Buoyed by this we marched fervently on, and, after the longest 1km to go in history, we did actually make it to the final hut where we enjoyed a well earned load off and stuck into whatever food we had left.

We made a cracking start the next morning, making better than usual time up the rest of the ascent, stopping at the top of McKinnon’s Pass to get photos of the monument there, and to admire the breathtaking view of the valley we were to descend to. After rueing the guided walkers yet again for the hot Milo waiting for them, we pressed on.
Nearby was the highest point of the trek, so another stop to show us on top of the track, and then on to Pass Hut for lunch. Lunch, as all our lunch and dinners did, consisted of three courses, and today we quite took our time enjoying them – especially the hot soup.
It was quite extraordinary weather that we’d had so far. The Milford Track is smack bang in the middle of the “Roaring 40s” and get anywhere from 6.5-7.5m of rainfall per year depending on where you are. But we’d not yet seen any rain, and the ranger at Mintaro Hut (night 2) told us that there hadn’t been any rain for 8 days before that, and they were going through a drought. Certainly there were lots of dried up creek beds, and we hadn’t yet come close to breaking out the wet gear.
So maybe it was a touch of excitement that led Bryce and I to get fully wet-geared-up after feeling some spots of precipitation just before we left. Steve wasn’t there to feel anything, and thought we were nutters, but it had been predicted to rain, and we felt it, so we ignored his mocking and kitting up anyway.

What had distracted Steve was the Loo with a View, a drop toilet that has a gorgeous outlook over the Clinton Valley that we’d just spent two days climbing along and up. Never before has such a routine task looked so good!

And so the descent began. It was slow for most of the way, but that suited us just fine. We crossed another large creek that was completely dried up – we could see the ice on a nearby peak melting and running into the top of this creek, but there must have been so little of it compared to normal that it flowed under ground (or under the boulders that made up this creek bed) where we were.

Further down the track we came across perhaps the most beautiful scene of ht etrek, if not the whole of NZ. There were waterfalls, translucent and colourful; trees with every yellow, green and brown in the spectrum; rocks that were smooth and rugged; and the entire scene was like something from a magical fantasy. There was moss or fungus or flowers everywhere – nothing plain or dull wherever you looked, as though someone had contrived every fine detail.
We paused in a few places down this stretch, stopping finally when we found a place to get down to the water and put our feet in. Stephen, never the one to let serenity or wonder soothe a nearby soul screamed like a high-school drama queen when he dipped his feet in the water, and for a good while after, and then repeated the process another couple of times.
Churlish buffoonery aside, I experienced a real spiritual time at this place – even recalling it now, 6 weeks later, I feel peaceful and at ease.

Revived, inside and out, we proceeded onwards, and after quite a while arrive at the guided tourer’s huts where we dumped our packs and headed along the side track to Sutherland Falls. IT was a longer detour than we initially thought it would be, but it was pretty cool when we got there. These falls are the largest in NZ – 580m(?) high, made up of cascading segments, each of them higher than the mighty Victoria Falls, though only 10-20m wide (at this ‘drought’ time).

Bryce and I got changed into our togs, removed our shirts and set off to go in behind the falls. We didn’t go far before we were shivering, and it wasn’t far after that that we started getting so cold we were clenching our muscles and breathing heavily and yelling out to try and keep warm. We both made it behind the falls screaming like delirious football fans, proclaiming to the world (that couldn’t hear us because we were behind these big falls) that we were great kings over it! On the way back out, HRH Timothy Schier fell on his bum, and from there out we returned to the cold and wet real world – invigorated, but cold and wet, from our heads to our … shoes. Oh no, whose idea was it to go behind the falls in our shoes? Off they come and around we sit for an hour, drying them out.

Hypothermia seemed to have been avoided, so finally we headed off towards our packs, and then, with the sun setting around us, on to Dumpling Hut for our final night’s abode.

The Dumpling hut ranger was relieved to see us, as it was well into twilight when we arrived, and we were well after everyone else, and even after his night time briefing. No worries but, we made fast work of dinner and hit the sacks.