My luck with the weather finally ran out today. I could hear rain pouring down on the hostel roof all night and sure enough, it was still going when my alarm went off at 7am. I had booked a water taxi for 8.30am to take me across Lake Te Anau to join the most interesting part of the Kepler track - another one of New Zealand's 'Great Walks'. It is possible to get there along a lakeside track from the town, but it's a long and boring route and I only really wanted to climb Mt Luxmore at 1472m.

I rang the taxi to check if people still went in such bad weather and perhaps the guy only said this because he still wanted to make some money, but I was informed that there are plenty of walks to do even if it is too wet for Mt Luxmore, and besides, he said the rain was due to clear soon.

So I stuck my coat on, tied the hood on tightly, and jogged on down to meet the tiny boat on the lake. By this point, the guy had changed his mind and told me the rain wouldn't be clearing until 4pm... Great! Ah well, I decided I could get some good exercise even if there weren't any views.

After a ten minute journey across the lake, I was dropped onto a beach and headed straight up the bush track towards Mt Luxmore. At least I was sheltered from the wind a little whilst amongst the trees. It was a very steep climb up to the top of the bush line, with a few rocky steps towards the top.

Once I left the forest, the weather really hit me - I was absolutely drenched after only a couple of minutes. Still, the guy wasn't coming to pick me up again until one o'clock (I negotiated as it's normally 4pm for everyone doing this route) and having done so much climbing already, I was keen to carry on in spite of the weather. (Don't worry Mum and Dad, there were lots of people around doing the actual Kepler Track; it was all on a very obvious path with not a chance of getting lost, and I had spare warm clothes!)

The next part was a flat run out in the open towards the Mt Luxmore Hut, with gentle grassy slopes on either side. Visibility wasn't all that bad - I could see at least 150m ahead, although I couldn't see anything below. After the hut, I started climbing again towards the summit. This part of the track reminded me of some scenes from Lord of the Rings, especially with the miserable weather making things look more dramatic!
I passed quite a few of the long distance walkers looking weary and carrying big backpacks. They obviously thought I was crazy to be running up a mountain in shorts in torrential rain. A couple of them shouted "Good on ye" after me and some American woman just looked and went "Holy crap!"

The actual summit is a ten minute diversion off the Kepler track, at which point visibility was dramatically reduced. I didn't take many pictures for fear of drowning my phone in the rain, but the photo I've put up demonstrates the views from the top perfectly well! It was 7 miles to the top and took 2 hours. I didn't linger there long as I was getting cold quickly, so I was back down on the beach an hour and a quarter later, by which time the rain had started to ease. I was an hour early for my lift back, but thankfully, I had dry clothes to put on (not only to keep me warm, but also to protect me from the ridiculous number of sand flies eager to eat me!)

I arrived back at the hostel cold and wet, but satisfyingly tired from my expedition. There is actually a race round all 65km of the track, called the Kepler Challenge, which takes place every December. That's another race to add to my list of future events, although admittedly not the cheapest or most practical! I would love to know what Mount Luxmore actually looks like though...

My bus for Queenstown picked me up at 5.30pm, by which time the wether had turned nasty again. I'm now back at Nomads near Lake Wakatipu, preparing for yet another early morning!