A little piece of Ketler Track

The alarm clock rings at 06:20 am (on vacation!), I quickly make myself a coffee and drive 5 minutes to Pearl Harbour. That's what the ship landing stage is called here, where the tours to Doubtful Sound start. I hope to maybe get a cancelled spot, but unfortunately all travelers appear on time. The tours are all fully booked for days, since the cancellation of Milford Sounds after the floods 4 days ago, all tourists now want to ride here. At least I can still book the last spot for the first tour on Wednesday... Back to the spot and start a washing machine first, then I drive 30 km further north to Te Anau and the Te Anau Lake. Here is the Kepler Track, a 60 km circuit with 3 overnight huts.. (which are all fully booked and would have been booked weeks in advance..... Jajaja, exactly) From the car park, the Luxmore Hut is 13 km away, I can manage that. For an hour, the path winds its way along the beach through the rainforest, next to moss and fern, thicker and larger trees grow here than on Stewart Island, then it goes uphill for 2 1/5 hours, until I reach the tree line at about 1050m. Finally, a clear view of all the mountains and lakes around, the path continues over a saddle to the hut. I briefly descend into a small cave where the stream continues underground, but without light, safe climbing is not possible here. So now it's the same way back to the starting point, I prefer circular routes. After 2 hours downhill, I feel it in my knees, in the end it's 28 km with 1300 meters of altitude in 7 hours, but then I'm too tired to have a beer on the beach. Back to the spot, hang up laundry and heat up the leftovers from the previous day for dinner... Done... Tomorrow I will continue towards Queenstown...