This was hard. We woke 06:15 to thunder, lightning & heavy rain, only to be told it would get worse, made lunch and ate breakfast. Left 07:30 with waterproof coats and covers on our backpacks which had all our clothes etc for the trek in (it slowed down to a steady downpour) 7.5 miles later a quick hot drink and snacks, on our way here some of the paths were under water up to our knees. We then reached Mackay Falls not as high as Sutherland but difficult to see the real beauty in these conditions (it's rumoured Sutherland and Mackay discovered this waterfall first and tossed a coin to deicide whose name would be used for the title, Mackay won and then said you can have the next one which turns out to be the fifth highest in the world!!!) Anyway back to the trek, after 9.5 miles we stopped for a quick lunch stop and the guides hurried us wanting to progress as the weather was worsening and by now we're wading through very fast flowing streams (torrents actually) up to Ga's bum, the guides making a human chain stopping us from being swept away. At one point a Japanese lady tried to pass us she slipped off the path, we were in water up to our thighs and we grabbed her before she went under fortunately it wasn't flowing fast (she was nearly fish food!!) We were elated to reach Sandfly Point after 13.5 miles.Sand flies are nasty little b*****s and give you hell of a bite, then our boat carries us to Milford Sound and Mitre Peak Lodge. This was a exciting stage of the trek the group behind us were air lifted out because of the conditions, after a soak in the bathtub and dinner (rack of lamb it's not all bad !!!) and just a few drinks, we were presented with our certificates. The Guides were some of the best in the world for the best trek in the world. I'll be putting photos on the blog, have a look and see what I mean. John & Gail