Decided the night before to run the Milford track on the spur of the moment. Had a free day of holiday so thought why not. Phoned around water taxi companies in the evening to see if I could get a lift to the start of the track in the morning and got lucky with one of them. Didn't have any of my normal nutrition with me, so ended up taking some cereal bars and cookies in my pack for the 55km effort.
Water taxi to start of the track at 08:30. Set off on tired legs as I had ran the Kepler 60km route 2 days before. Really felt the fatigue on the steep ascent. Annoyingly got lost at the Dumpling hutt and faffed around there for 15 mins, before retracing my steps back to the route. The last 20km were fantastic undulating/flat running to the end with beautiful views. Got eaten alive by sandflies whilst waiting for the Water taxi at the other end. Very bumpy ride in the boat back to civilisation! Great fun.
Report at the time as per Strava and instagram posts:
Strava: "Had a free day of holiday with nothing planned. So couldn't turn down the chance to check out the Milford Track. Did not disappoint! :D Snowcapped peaks, walls of waterfalls, great trails, more Kea. Nice to know my body can cope well with the 60km Keppler track 2 days ago, followed by 55km today"
Instagram: "Hadn’t planned on running three ‘NZ Great Walks’ in the space of 5 days, but last min holiday organising makes for some fun ideas 😁
- Kepler track: 60km, 1900m elevation, 5hr23m
- Milford (Piopiotahi) track: 55km, 1600m elevation, 5hrs20mins (annoyingly got lost for 15mins)
- Rakiura track, Stewart Island: 33km, 1100m elevation, 3hr10m.
Lack of planning also meant hadn’t packed any proper running nutrition. So all powered on cereal bars and cookie time 😂.
So privileged to be in a position to experience all of these. You get to see and hear so much at an easy pace, immersed in nature, …running also avoids the formidable sandflys down here! 🦟 👿
Mostly had the tracks to myself. Epic views, great trails, brilliant wildlife, always good food and beer at the end.
Hadn’t done any longer distance training recently, usually only averaging 30k a week running. Nice to know my body can easily take a 60k run over the mountains and feel like I could keep going another 60k. Good place to be for @taraweraultramarathon coming up in a few months.
Thanks to the super helpful @fiordlandoutdoors for helping facilitate my Milford run :)