The advertised time from The Mackenzie hut to The Divide (the end of the Routeburn Track) is 5 hours. This is an "average time" taking into account short breaks for photos or eating. This couple will be pushing it to get there, and they are practically jogging up the trail, so we let them go, we had plenty of time.
Most of the hiking on this section is through the same type of forest that we were in the last hour of yesterday's hike. Enchanted forest type scenery heavy moss covering the ground and trees.
After a couple of hours we pass Earland falls, which is almost 200 ft tall. We stop for a couple of pictures and continue on.
We make really good time down to Howden hut and stop there for just a little while to eat our lunch.
We continue on towards The Divide, and we get to Key summit, which is a 1 hours side hike. We get there at around 11:30am with plenty of time to do the hike. At the junction of this trail we meet a group who are taking part of a guided hike . We talk for a little while, turns out they are a Sierra Club group, doing a day hike from the divide and up to Key Summit. This was one of the many times that I saw a group and was glad that we are doing the trip by ourselves. Not that it looked horrible, but there were many different levels of ages and ability and the group will only move as quickly as the slowest person. I would imagine a lot of time is spent waiting on folks to re-group. Most people drop their packs at the base of the climb and do the key summit hike without their packs. I just continue onward with mine still on. It feels strange to not have the pack on after 2.5 days of it being welded to my back. We go up a couple of switchbacks, and I catch and pass some of the Sierra Club group that had gone up earlier. After another switchback or so, Katie calls up to me and says, "Is this the climb ? Why didn't we drop our packs ?!?!" So she chucks hers in the bushes, and starts bounding up the trail like a tigger with her new found, unencumbered lightness.
At the top of Key summit is a view of snow topped peaks, and a hanging lake. It is very clear how the glacier cut a cross section through the mountain and chopped off the valley at the mouth of this lake, turning it's outflow stream into a 500 ft. tall waterfall to the bottom of the glacier cut below. there is a loop trail at the top, with signs pointing out various things about the alpine environment.
We go back down the trail, pick up Katie's pack and continue down towards the Divide. We arrive with about an hour to spare, take the obligatory "End of the hike with the sign" photo, and I brew us up a cup of coffee while we wait in the bus shelter for our bus to arrive. It feels strange for a while to be be a road after being in the woods for 3 days.
The bus arrives at 2:30pm and we head towards Milford Sound for our overnight cruise which leaves at 4:30pm. The landscape along the drive down to Milford sound is very dramatic with very steep faces towering above the road in all directions. Many of the tops of the mountains have significant glaciers at their tops. There is a long 1 mile long downhill tunnel that leads down to the sound and a 15 min. timed traffic light controlling traffic going into it. We get stopped at it going in. Looking to our left we see a apartment building sized block of ice that had fallen several hundred feet from the mountain top above. There were people walking around it's base, which didn't seem like a very wise idea at all.
When we get to Milford it feels like we are back in civilization, we get a slice of cake and a beer at the cafe, then walk on to the wharf and wait for our cruise. The cruise holds 60 people and is fully booked. We share a bunk with a couple from Brussels, Belgium, who we make conversation with on and off for the duration of the cruise. Katie and I throw our packs into the bunks, and quickly go to take a warm shower, our first in 3 days. Milford sound was very hazy and humid, making photography pretty poor. The Scale of the sound is hard to grasp, the steepness and height of the mountains rising out of the sea don't really register until you see a kayak or another boat at the base of one. The peaks rise up to about 5000 ft (Mitre Peak is the highest) and rise to that height almost immediately after leaving the water. There are trees clinging to the side of the mountains, and in places there are tree slides where one falls and rips all of the others off and pile up at the base. The wind is blowing very strongly, blowing the spray from the boat and making it very wet to be up top on the boat.
We meet an Irish guy who is traveling the world and we exchange stories about Southern Utah. He tells of getting off a train in Green River Utah, and being the only one getting off the train, no platform, just down on the dirt. The man on the train told him to walk for about 10 min in a certain direction and he would come across a bar. He decided not to go into the bar after looking in. He noticed he had cell phone receptions so he sent a text message to his friend back in Ireland to get on google maps very quickly and find him a place to stay. His friend replied with some detailed directions (North for about 5 min then east for a little while). Somehow he found a place to stay, he said it was one of the coolest places he had been, because the people were so nice. One of the ladies in the town lent him a truck (an old Silverado), and some guy took him hunting. It was pretty entertaining to hear his take on staying in this little town.
In the evening we stood outside with the Irish guy and Belgian couple and talked while looking at the sky.
It's pretty interesting that almost all the non-American people we have spoken to have all asked what we thought about the presidential race, and politics in general. The most impressive thing about this is how knowledgeable they all are about all of the candidates and what is going on.
We turn in and set our alarms so we can catch the sunrise the next morning.
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