This post is from husband and wife team Kemble and Jane.
Somehow as the years have piled up, Jane and I have lost our appetite for carrying a large pack but we still love being in wild(ish) places. In early 2025 we did Queen Charlotte track. It was supported and we acquired a taste for light packs, showers, good food cooked by someone else and a comfortable bed. We were casting round for another guided walk and a friend said, “Why don’t you do the Milford?” After a bit of thought we couldn’t come up with any convincing reasons not to. So, after a healthy bout of SKI (Spending Kids’ Inheritance) we were on our way.
We prepared with loop walks on the Hakarimata’s and Pirongia, up to four hours or so. With the benefit of hindsight, we got reasonably fit but hadn’t spent long enough on our feet nor got back into the habit of eating regularly while walking. But it worked out ok.
Our walk began with a briefing at Ultimate Hikes HQ in Queenstown. We met the other members of the group and picked up loan equipment. We took their pack (40 litre – ours are either too big or too small) and rain jacket, vinyl on account of it’s been known to rain in Fiordland. Their equipment is serviceable but if you have your own it would probably be better as the jacket and pack were both quite heavy. You carry your own gear but no food, cooking equipment or sleeping bag.
The Group
The composition of the group was interesting. There were 42, and Jane and I were two of four New Zealanders. The group included six Japanese with their own English-speaking coordinator; an American airline pilot; a couple of Canadians including an Albertan separatist (a topic best avoided); a Mexican family, who each year did a trip with tramps at a location decided by a family member in turn (they didn’t tramp in Mexico – too dangerous); and a couple of Western Australian friends sporting very robust ocker humour.
Day 1 – Queenstown to Glade House via Te Anau
The next day we bused to Te Anau for lunch at a cafe that Ultimate Hikes has shares in I think (the food there and throughout was excellent). Then on to to Te Anau Downs for a boat ride to the head of Lake Te Anau and the start of the track.
The lake was high so we got wet feet getting off the boat – the horror – but that would have happened anyway as they got us to wade through a trough of warm soapy water to try to deal with Didymo. It’s in Te Anau apparently but not yet in the Clinton River, which the track follows for all of the first day.
There is a short walk from Glade Wharf to Glade House, the first night’s accommodation. This is the third edition of Glade House; it’s burnt down twice in the 140 years-odd there has been a lodge at the site.
After arriving at Glade House, sorting out our rooms etc, we were split into groups for a “Nature Walk”, which Jane and I found a bit long and a bit late in the day to be enjoyable.
Day 2 – Glade House to Pompolona Lodge
The next morning was the true start of the walk, from Glade House to Pompolona Lodge. It’s about 16 km on an evenly graded and very beautiful track through the bush and beside the Clinton River. There is abundant birdlife and views of the surrounding mountains at many points, and we saw a good-sized trout in the river.
The scenery was consistently wonderful, but this was special – a waterfall plunging into a hole in the cliff then fountaining out further down:
Pompolona Lodge is set on multiple levels on the hillside. It feels quite enclosed but if you look up to the skylight in the lounge there are mountains hanging close above.
It was our 43rd wedding anniversary and the cook decorated our desserts (creme brulee) with a candle apiece. Very nice. Unfortunately, due to a billeting mix-up (probably because I have kept my own name and the lodge warden didn’t realise we were related) we were separated for sleeping quarters. Jane wound up with a couple of ladies, one of whom was not at all fond of fresh air, and I was with the Aussies. Great guys, very funny, but they were in the Australian team that hammered the Poms 5-0 a few years back in the Snoring Ashes. After a couple of sleepless hours, I took a blanket down to the lounge and “slept” fitfully on a very narrow couch.
At least it was quiet down there but neither of us had a great sleep before tackling the hardest day, over the MacKinnon Pass (15 km but over 1,000 metres of climbing).
Day 3 – Pompolona Lodge to Quintin Lodge over MacKinnon Pass
Unlike the DOC hut, Mintaro, Pompolona Lodge is close to two hours from the foot of the pass and by the time we got there I was not feeling so good. It was a real slog up the zig-zags to the pass and I noted rather dully the profusion of beautiful alpine plants, many in flowering glory, but didn’t take photographs, which I now regret.
The forecast was for 50-60 kph wind on top, but by the time we left the lunch shelter it was gusting 80-90 kph. In the gusts Jane was all but blown away but persevered and as we lost height the gusts became much less alarming. After half an hour or so the guide who had been cleaning up at the shelter caught up with us and stayed with us the rest of the way to Quintin Lodge. We had to take the much steeper emergency route on the descent due to avalanche risk.
The guides were wonderful throughout. Extremely helpful, good company, and always encouraging. When she heard of our sleeping accommodation problem, one of them went ahead and made sure we got a room to ourselves. Much appreciated and we had a very good sleep.
On the way down from MacKinnon Pass the track goes alongside the Anderson Cascades, which are absolutely beautiful.
We arrived at Quintin Lodge three minutes past the cutoff to go up to the Sutherland Falls but were both too tired to be very disappointed about that! Those that did go up said it was a hard walk after the wind and rain on the Mackinnon Pass.
Day 4 – Quintin Lodge to Milford Sound
The next day the weather was better at the lower level, but DOC turned back some walkers short of MacKinnon on the basis of the following day’s forecast. They may have been influenced by the fact that the group of freedom walkers a day behind us included an extended family with a couple of one-year old’s. Which seems utterly daft, not to mention irresponsible. I cannot imagine the impact on the other occupants of the hut let alone the difficulty of getting them over and down the MacKinnon Pass.
The walk from Quintin Lodge to the boat pick-up point at Sandfly Point is the longest at 21 km but by no means the hardest, being most flat and overall downhill to the sea.
Soon after leaving Quintin Lodge, we had a consolation view that didn’t require an extra walk:
Soon after this the track passes close to Mackay Falls. Apparently, Sutherland and Mackay came to these falls first and tossed for naming rights. Sutherland lost but won, because he got the next one!
The recommended lunch spot was beside Giant’s Gate Falls, and allegedly if you got close to the falls the sandflies would be deterred by the mist and spray. It was cold and wet to be sure, but the sandflies were undeterred. We did not have a leisurely lunch, and our sandwiches were liberally garnished with sandflies, compromising their vegetarian status. We did better than a fellow tramper though, who briefly put down her paper bag full of sandwiches only to have a Weka make off with it.
The last lap to the boat passed all too quickly and despite it being hard in parts we were sad to be leaving that magical place.
Day 6 – Milford Sound to Queenstown
That night we stayed at Milford Lodge, a former Tourist Hotel Corporation facility. Slightly faded glory but very comfortable, more excellent food and from our bedroom window the view that launched a thousand calendars.
Overnight the thunder, lightning and torrential rain seemed almost continuous – not that we were awake to give a full report. The benefit of this became apparent on our boat trip on Milford Sound the next day, for every ephemeral waterfall was running strong.
Milford Sound
Out in the Sound the wind was very strong. This made taking pictures from the upper deck hazardous and sent a number of the waterfalls back into the sky. With the weather we had every mountain and cliff was shedding water from innumerable waterfalls, all bar two of which only flow after rain – not infrequent, fortunately. Where the cloud was low the falls seemed to appear from nowhere. It’s an amazingly dramatic landscape -which we have always known but experiencing – it cuts through the over-familiarity.
After the boat trip we bused back to Queenstown and went our separate ways.
Doing it supported was pricey but it’s probably the only we can get into big country these days. Comfort definitely has its appeal, but ability is more of a reason. Also, it’s relatively easy to get a booking, as against the ‘hit and miss’ web-site lottery for the freedom walkers.
All in all, a wonderful trip. What next???
Thank you Kemble and Jane for your story and photographs – very enjoyable reading. Yes, I wonder what is next??
In case you are interested, below is the elevation and distances for the Milford Track.
Additional waterfall scenes
The writers of this post:
Brings back many happy memories of the first “BIG” hike I did. That too was a paid one and VERY enjoyable. Thanks Kemble and Jane for sharing and the beautiful photos.,
Thanks for the feedback.:) I thought Kemble & Jane sharing their adventure would bring back memories for people who had previously hiked the Milford track.