Kepler TrackKepler Track

The Kepler Track is a roughly 60 km long hike in New Zealand. Both the start and finish are located just outside the small town of Te Anau on the South Island. We began the walk along a lake with unbelievably turquoise-blue water, following the rainforest on its western shore. There are no trail markers on the track because the path is so well maintained that it's always obvious where it leads, since there simply isn't any alternative.

After a few kilometers, the trail leaves the lake behind and climbs steeply uphill. Eventually, we emerge from the forest straight into the alpine zone. Back home there would usually be a belt of dwarf mountain pines between the forest and the rocky peaks, but here the dense forest suddenly ends, giving way to grass, moss, and rocks.

Before long, we spot the hut where we'll spend our first night. It has a large common room with stoves and running water, toilets, and two big bunk rooms. There's no restaurant or showers, you eat what you bring, and if you want to wash, there's a stream below the hut.

The true stars of the hut, however, are the kea, New Zealand's famous alpine parrots. Kea are incredibly intelligent, curious, social, and above all... destructive.

If you happen to leave your sandals outside, the best-case scenario is that you'll find them torn into tiny pieces. The worst-case scenario is that you won't find them at all because a kea has happily carried them off somewhere to "study" them in peace. The hut warden told us they always steal just one shoe as a rule, and that even the cars parked down in the valley aren't safe from them.

Needless to say, we kept a close eye on our belongings and treated the kea with plenty of respect. The hut's common room was full of information boards about them, as you can see in the photos below.

The next day we once again enjoyed perfect weather as we hiked along the main ridge of the Kepler Track. Two of the backcountry shelters were being renovated, so we frequently saw helicopters flying overhead, carrying construction materials.

The biggest highlight, however, was the rainforest we descended into afterward. It looked like something straight out of a fantasy movie. Massive ancient trees completely covered in moss, vines hanging everywhere, birds calling from every direction, and streams gently flowing through the forest. We kept expecting a dinosaur to step out from behind one of the trees, the whole forest felt like a single living organism.

We spent our second night in this forest after taking a swim beneath a waterfall, camping at an official campsite far from any sign of civilization, under a sky filled with countless stars.

During the night, we were raided by two kea. Before we even realized what was happening, they had chewed a hole straight through our tent. At one point Kika tried chasing one of them away, and the kea seemed to laugh mischievously as they circled the tent together. Hopefully we'll be able to repair the damage, but we're just glad they didn't make it all the way to our sleeping bags.

We covered the final 30 kilometers of the track in a single day. We were amazed by the incredible variety of ecosystems we had crossed, rainforests, lakes, rivers, alpine ridges, wetlands, and meadows, all lying side by side, separated by remarkably sharp natural boundaries.

We hadn't seen nature this untouched and ancient in a very long time. The Kepler Track gave us a glimpse into the distant past, to a time when our planet looked much like this, around 80 million years ago.