Anthus novaeseelandiae

Day 3 of the Kepler Track. Today was a real mother. To start it was 3 hours straight uphill, to the top of the mountains looming over the Iris Burn Valley. Climb, climb, climb. The one upside was the cloud cover that blocked out the sun and kept the temperature low.

By the time I reached the ridge, 2 hours into the uphill, I was practically delirious. I sat at the bottom of the series of stairs I was about to climb over the ridge and closed my eyes, breathing raggedly. I drank too much of my water and stuffed handfuls of raisins into my mouth. After a few minutes I felt like I might not actually pass out and so continued on, wobbly but stable.

That's when the clouds evaporated and revealed the stunning mountainscape that was all around me. Rippling ridgelines, pointy peaks, and cloud-shrouded valleys in every direction. And before me a thin spine over which I was about to traverse to reach the first mountaintop shelter. White wildflowers of several varieties were blooming amidst the the clumps of tussock grass that clung to the steep sides of the ridge on both sides.

When I reached the first shelter I felt restored, mostly mentally, knowing the most heinous of the climbing was over for the day. Two days over 30 flat km had also improved my fitness such that my feet and shoulders and hips were no longer in such gnawing pain, even after my epic battle with gravity. Over the next 4 hours I tramped across "the tops," a series of rocky and grassy ridges winding gently over the mountains, to the summit of Mt. Luxmore (1472 meters) and then down to the Luxmore Hut, mansion of DOC huts. I was transfixed all afternoon by the incomprehensible scenery around me, completely unobscured in brilliant sunshine.

Loitering like teenage hooligans around the base of Mt. Luxmore were several New Zealand Pipits, apparently hoping for handouts from passing trampers. I'd only seen a couple of these birds up until today, but the tops were crawling with them, so I was able to get great views and great pictures. They look just like American Pipits, a streaky combination of white and brown with a white eyebrow and that distinctive motacillid tail, which constantly pumps up and down as they walk.

The Luxmore Hut is very popular, much more so than the other two huts of the Kepler Track. It's this hut that so restricts availability for the Great Walk. Many come just for the night (or two), take in the unbelievable settings and risings of the sun over the Southern Alps, the fluffy blanket of clouds covering the valleys below, and then hike back down to Te Anau. As such it's a much larger hut, accommodating 54 people, sometimes more if people are keen to sleep on the deck or helipad. It was very busy around dinner time so after the hut talk I snuck away to the hills to watch the alpenglow materialize over the mountains in the distance. A band of blue, purple, pink, orange, yellow, and blue again circled the jagged horizon as the moon descended through the sky. The peeping of the pipits called an end to the day as darkness fell over the landscape.