JANUARY 29, 2022 – In those days, to venture down “The Most Beautiful Walk in the World,” a reservation was required—along with rain gear and sturdy hiking boots. Average annual rainfall in that region pushes 300 inches. Since most of the Milford Track follows a canyon floor, the trek can be a muddy slog from one ford after another through angry cascades.
I was lucky. The water-taxi from the jumping off point (Te Anau Downs) to the trailhead was propelled by sunbeams, and except for light rain over the 1,154-meter-high MacKinnon Pass, the water gods slumbered tamely during the four-day/three-night expedition.
The passengers aboard the launch—trekkers from the world over—were bound for the same experience. Thus, no effort was required to become acquainted; we knew each other by common aspiration if not by name. As the vessel purred toward the trailhead, everyone fell silent in awe of the exotic flora along the shoreline. However much any of us had seen of the world, none had seen this spectacular part of it. In those moments, all of us became of one religion.
As an example of Kiwi hospitality, even in the rough, the Milford Track greeted us graciously with trail markers, and, to ensure restorative sleep at night, a series of rustically comfortable huts had been duly spaced along the route.
If I found easy camaraderie for stretches along the trail or around the cooking stove at night, I covered most of the walk itself alone with my thoughts and unspoken responses to nature’s grandeur. In fact, I walked the trail twice—first to haul my pack to the next hut, then to retrace the same ground at a more observant, exploratory pace.
Never on a hike have I stopped so many times, not for photos—I took precious few, given my limited film supply—but to observe in wonderment. Whatever mix of motivations had carried me to that part of the universe, I’d somehow landed in heaven.
Words of aesthetics vanished into inadequacy as one scene melded into another along an endless continuum—nature’s vertical stonework accessible only to one’s eye and imagination; infinite views of heaven’s heights; more rainbows at the base of yet another waterfalls singing a symphony.
I resolved that my (human) perception is what gave these masterworks significance and wondered: What greater “meaning” in life could be found or fabricated?
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The wingless kiwi is NZ’s eccentric symbol and in the wild, it’s an elusive one too. Again, I was lucky. Early one morning I began the climb up MacKinnon Pass. As I pulled tight the drawstring of my rain jacket hood, out stepped . . . Mr. Kiwi . . . from the thick vegetation along the trail. He hopped along with the confidence of an old trail-hand—or guide, it seemed—with his hands clasped behind his back (so I perceived him). Of that encounter I have no photo, merely the memory of a patient escort up the pass through sweet rain babbling joyfully upon “The Most Beautiful Walk in the World.”
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
