Kepler track in the direction of Luxmore Hut. We’re 2, maybe 1.5 km away from the tree line and exposed ridge when it’s time to head back in order to make it before nightfall. We should have given ourselves 2 or 3 hours more by starting earlier, ignoring suggestions of DOC that walking time could be cut in half for fit walkers. Surely we’re not athletes, but at pretty good pace, without backpacks, and given limited number of stops for pictures, the only way we could’ve cut the walking time was if we sprinted uphill. Our fitness level while laying in Asian hammocks over the past months plunged dramatically. We covered 20 km in 5 hours return trip, 800 elevation change. First half was gentle, through rolling meadows and mossy podocarp forest tracing the outline of Lake Te Anau. Second half went steadily on an incline and got very monotonous for the last two hours uphill until we reached limestone bluffs.
View of Mt Eglinton valley from the Deer Flat campsite - toilets, water from the stream, and less persistent sand flies are just a bonus.
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