Day 1 - Brod Bay to Luxmore

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Day 0 involved driving over to Te Anau from Dunedin. I was lucky in that Josh drove most of the way while I was on a mandatory work call from 3 to 7pm, with only limited reception drops! After a night in a small double backpackers room, we got ready to start.

In terms of logistics, although you can do the Kepler in a loop I had heard that the portion closest to Te Anau was relatively flat and similar to day three (Iris Burn to Motarau), so I elected to skip the first of day 1 and the last of day 4. I drove the car to Rainbow Reach, where it'd be parked the next few days, got the 10am shuttle back to Te Anau with Tracknet and the 10:30am water taxi to Brod Bay with Fiordland Outdoors. Definitely recommended!

Once we got all our ducks in a row and got to the shores of Brod Bay, it was time for up, up and up. I perhaps had been light on the details to Josh around how steep the first day would be, which backfired on me as he powered up the hill with his long legs and I trailed behind! We made good time, with significant bribes of fruit jubes, and collapsed into Luxmore.

The entire time I was rambling about how excited I was to see a kea - so nothing could contain my excitement of turning up and seeing one sitting outside the hut! We saw several kea during our stay at Luxmore.

Day 2 - Luxmore to Iris Burn

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This day is the most exposed, being travel across the tops, and I was quite sad to see on the whiteboard "low visibility expected". We bummed around in Luxmore for the morning, exploring to see the caves, and eventually set out in the clouds. The Great Walk huts and the Kepler huts in particular are pure luxury (multiple bunk rooms, flushing toilets inside, "wash rooms" to have a little wash down shower!) so this was hardly difficult.

Luckily for us, the cover burnt off by around 10am and we were treated to some amazing views (and more kea!) Covered in sunscreen we pushed on. Late that night I went investigating at Iris Burn and saw kiwi with some of my other walkers, putting me at well over 50% success rate for chunky chicken sightings so far.

Day 3 - Iris Burn to Motarau

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This was the day the rain rolled in, and we found out Josh's secondhand goretex jacket was less than waterproof. Today was a both-ears-in podcast day, head down power on and hike through sort of time.

We have found that Samsung offers an option to have two bluetooth headphones attached to the same phone which is great for hiking and listening. The miserable weather meant there were little photos.

Day 4 - Iris Burn to Rainbow Reach

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After the rain and misery of the previous day, we were pretty happy that the car was parked close! Along with some new hiking buddies we'd picked up, we pushed on and out and then gouged ourselves on food in Te Anau.