About Ultimate Hikes
Ultimate Hikes is a 5 day 4 night all-inclusive guided hike through the Fjordland National Park of the Milford Track on the south island of New Zealand. It’s a 33.5 mile walk and is moderately difficult.
If you plan on having contact with the outside world, find another hike. This one won’t be for you. I personally, found it liberating not being tied to a phone and social media for 5 days.
Guided Walk/Hike Includes
- Transportation from Queenstown, NZ to Te Anau
- 3 night stay along the track in pristine cabins
- All meals and snacks
- Backpacks are available if you don’t already have one
- You can also pack a bag that will be delivered to your final destination
- Scenic cruise on the majestic Milford Sound
We loaded up the rental and headed into Queenstown to meet at Ultimate Hikes at 8:30am. We then boarded their nice coach and headed south towards Lake Te Anau.
From there we boarded a boat that took us across the lake to a pier where we unloaded and walked an easy mile to Glade House. Shortest part of the entire journey, not including the bus and boat travel.
Glade House was a shock. As I recall it’s the third one that is still standing after the other two burned down in the late 1800’s. This one was built in the early 1900’s and despite its age had been renovated preserving it’s character but making it elegant. We had cold juice, water, and an assortment of cookies available on arrival and were shown to our accommodations. I was not expecting what I saw. Big window with a landscape view, electricity from a diesel generator, shower, sink, flushing toilet. Pretty nice!
Accommodations
- Private rooms with one queen bed or two single beds (we splurged for our own room)
- Quad rooms with four bunk beds
- private rooms have an en-suite with a flushing toilet
- bathrooms for quad rooms are shared and located separately from the rooms. Also, have flushing toilets
First Day Exploring
We were to meet outside for a group photo followed by a short loop with our guides who tried to get us up to speed on the common plants we’d be seeing along the trail for the next 3 days. We arrived at a scenic stream and were turned loose to complete the loop back to Glade House for dinner.
Is the Water Really safe to drink?
We were told the water is safe to drink from the streams and rivers. However, up until this trip, I would’ve NEVER drank water from any lake, stream, or river anywhere. Hello, leptospirosis! Which doesn’t seem to be an issue, so they say. There is danger of Giardia but we were told it was very minimal. I did it, I drank it, I didn’t get sick. But that doesn’t mean you won’t. Listen to the locals or not, it’s up to you. My personal experience was I felt uneasy about it but got lucky.
Group Dinner
We had wine (my first glass in 444 days) then dined on salmon. Desert wasn’t a disappointment either- ice cream and a creamy pastry.
Keep in mind there’s no road to Glade House, these supplies are shipped and then transported via ATV’s to the lodge. Also, all the other supplies to the next two lodges flow through Glade House where they are helicoptered to the next lodges. Incredible. Everything is so meticulously planned out, it’s quite impressive.
After dinner everyone was divided up by country and had to introduce ourselves. Koreans, Japanese, Australians, one Israeli, a couple from the Netherlands, and Americans.
We were given a briefing for the next day’s schedule, our rally point if something bad happened, and a history lesson before heading off to bed. This briefing would be a nightly event where we also got to choose our dinner for the next night. Generator stops at 10pm, comes on again at 6am!
Because most of our time was spent traveling on the first day, we didn’t get much outdoor hiking. Having said that, the coach ride there along with the boat ride was pretty incredible with breathtaking views. Not a loss in my opinion. Given the fact that we had a fantastic meal in a comfortable room, I was much more prepared for the hike the next day.
What to Pack
- Base layer
- Good quality and study hiking shoes or boots
- Merino wool
- long sleeve shirt
- short sleeve shirt
- hiking pants (preferably fast drying pants)
- sun hat, warm hat and gloves
- Insect repellent for sand flies (those things are no joke)
- sunscreen
- water bottle
- Some cash and credit card
- Camera
If New Zealand is on your bucket list remember that our winter is their summer. We were so lucky to have a beautiful trip in December the entire time. But you need to plan for all kinds of weather just in case.
Be sure to stop by next week to read about Day #2. This will be a five part series so that we can elaborate on the entire experience.
We are interested in an all-inclusive Milford Sound trek and will be in South Island 23 October until 6 November.