Kepler Track
Arriving in Te-anau in a crazy wind and rain storm not surprising for the Fiordland. Deciding on when to do the hikes in the Fiordland was difficult with the rain and the forcast was rain. If it was nice we would hike otherwise we would hide. Little did we realize the weather here is always nasty. The campground we were staying at had a cabin available for the next night so we decided to run the Kepler track and then stay in the cabin. The Kepler track is 63km and is one of the 9 great walks of New Zealand. That night it poured rain with some added thunder and lightning.
Phil woke at about 5:00am to beautiful sunny weather. The sky was clear and we were ready for our 48km hike/run. The Kepler track was a mix of easy walking and a lot of switchbacks, a popular trail since it has 3 huts on it so most people take 3-4 days to walk it. The first 12km is in the trees and the last 33 km is in the trees but we like to hike above treeline. We decided to go quickly up through the trees so we could get above treeline as fast as possible. Breaking thru the trees was amazing the views of Lake Te Anau and Mt Luxmore towering above us. It was another few minutes before we reached the first hut at the base of Mt
Luxmore where we had some lunch. A helicopter landed beside the hut and dropped off some people I guess that’s one way to get up the mountain. The track led us up and around traversing mountainsides until we reached one of the emergency shelters. They really like there switchbacks here. More great views of the southern arm, of Lake Te Anau. Around a few more mountains and more switchbacks we reached the second emergency shelter. Here there was about 6 kids waiting for their parents they were hiking the whole trail which was great to see. We took in some more great views and then headed back down. 
This was our 24km turnaround spot we could have made it all the way around but the last bit would have been long with no views. So we ran most of the way down for a 10hour day of hiking 48kms. What a great day and we lucked out with great weather.
