Is Luke Alive?: Kepler Track

Hey Guys!
If you are coming over from the "Journey into the Southlands" Post, welcome to the next part of the adventure, if not, go check out that first!

We woke up early on the 17th of April, in the year 2016, to prepare a glorious feast of French Toast before hitting the trails. It is common knowledge that French Toast is the ultimate food for any activity.

Our first day took us up onto the ridge-line. We stopped at Luxmore Hut in the afternoon to make dinner, and then went further up the trail to set up the tent, where we couldn't be found. It dropped well below freezing that night, and we ended up wearing pretty much every layer that we own. We had spectacular views of both the sunset and sunrise from our site.

The next morning, we got to explore some awesome caves near the hut. We wanted to follow them to end, but after about 30 minutes, decided that they probably went on forever. So we returned to the surface and set off across the ridge-line to Iris Burn Campground. We had gorgeous views of the surrounding mountains for most of the day, especially from the summit of Mount Luxmore. We were feeling pretty adventurous, and decided to go off the track to climb the summit ridge from the opposite side. It was a fun side route, and we snapped some gorgeous shots of the peak. Towards the end of the day, we descended off the ridge-line into a beautiful valley to stay the night. At Iris Burn, we met several other hikers who were also camping along the Kepler Track. There was an Israeli girl and a French couple that we got to know over a late night campfire.

The next morning took us through the valley to a lake, where we set up camp on the beach. We thought it was going to be a nice relaxing evening after a freezing cold swim, but everything changed when the fire nation attacked. Unfortunately, not really; we got attacked by something worse. EVERY SINGLE mosquito in New Zealand decided to sneak under the rain fly and spend the night on top of the tent with us. We managed to fall asleep to the melodious sound of super hangry mosquitoes, but the real adventure came the next morning, when we had to figure out how to escape the tent without being eaten alive. Ever seen the Mummy? Pick any gruesome bug scene from that, and that's what we thought would be our best case scenario.

I know you dying of anticipation to see if we escaped alive or not; well we certainly didn't die!

The final day of our trip was a short five hour walk out of the woods to the highway, where we would continue our hitchhiking adventures.

Check out the pictures!

The Adventure Begins

Lake Te Anau

Luxmore Hut

Dope Campsite #1

Poor Little Guy forgot how to Live

Incoming Sunset

The track that normal people follow is waaaay down there

The view of the summit from our bushwhacking route

I dunno why I look so pained, but yay summit picture!

Following the ridge

We passed this lady about 3 times, but she never passed us. We decided that she must be the Spirit of the Mountain

A shortcut to Mushrooms!

Dope Campsite #2

The birds are called Kea, and they are the most mischievous bird I have ever seen. They would go around pulling the soles out of boots, and I'm pretty sure they would pull out my soul too if they got the chance.