Tom Hoster looks back on a summer trek through New Zealand’s South Island

Hiking the Milford Track, Fiordland National Park, South Island New Zealand
By Alexandra Coulton


Travel Weekly’s North America correspondent, Tom Hoster, reminisces about his summer trek through New Zealand while the rest of the editorial team experiences the arctic breezes terrorising our unsuspecting Sydney office.

A few years ago (pre-Covid, of course) my family and I hiked the Milford Track – a five-day hike along New Zealand’s South Island.

In my book, it is one of the great hikes in the world.

Hiking the Milford Track (they call it a “Track”, not a “Trek”) is a highly organized – and highly regulated – affair. It starts in Queenstown with a bus ride to a boat. After a couple of hours on the boat with your fellow hikers, you put are put ashore at your first lodge.

There are four lodges in all. You and your fifty fellow hikers and six guides all hike – east to west – from lodge to lodge, 54 kilometres in all.

The lodges, which are remote enough to require being supplied by helicopter, are commodious; the food is excellent, and their staffs are fabulous.  The track is pristine and beautifully maintained by New Zealand’s Department of Conservation.

Your daily hikes can be solitary if you want them to be, since everyone is hiking the same direction, you never run into another hiker headed the other way.

Every day brings numerous waterfalls, wonderful vistas, and (always) ferns. Only one day of hiking is challenging – a fabulous hike up a glacial valley to the rugged MacKinnon Pass.

The next day of hiking – the one that terminates in Milford Sound – was one of the great afternoons of my life. My older daughter and I missed the hot chocolate stop after lunch and spent the entire afternoon, just the two of us. Life doesn’t get better than that.

The final day includes a cruise on Milford Sound, something that is a highlight of the many cruise ships that make Milford Sound an important point in their journeys around the South Island.

While those sedentary cruise ship passengers observe the Sound from their huge ships, you see it from a smaller day cruiser, knowing that your five days of overland hiking means that you earned the right to see it up close.

The Milford Track, Fiordland National Park, South Island New Zealand (iStock/arielmaor)

Latest News