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Keith and Anne Quinn on the Milford Track - Source: ONE Sport -
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Legendary sportswriter Keith Quinn returns to the iconic Milford Track, determined to make amends for a missed opportunity 15 years earlier
In the part two of Quinn's adventure, the veteran broadcaster faces the big test of the MacKinnon pass, manages to find a rugby angle and finds redemption after 15-years.
Big test
Day three was our big test. From the restful night before in the Pompolona Lodge, our 10pm curfew (they cut the lights off) meant we were up fresh in the morning, though I was awake for a time listening to the rain drilling on the roof.
We were out on the track at 7.30am. Ahead was the 1300 metre uninviting vertical ascent to the MacKinnon monument on the top. The day dawned fine, and I admit to having a look but dammit, there was not a helicopter in sight. There would be no excuses this time.
Believe me this walk is no laid-back ramble. For many of us, myself included, it was to be the most forbidding physical effort in years.
The MacKinnon Pass track is not a gently rising leafy pathway, instead it is a four hour heads-down scramble over sharp rocks which up-thrust at you at every pace and demand your total attention. This old bloke's legs screamed out most of the way.
As younger walkers strode past us, us more senior ones were suddenly made to feel world-weary and shattered. (I loved the quote another Australian used to mutter at the youngies; Adrian Hulcome told me he was quoting his father-in-law who used to say; 'As you are now, I was; As I am now, you will be some day.')
How apt I thought as I battled away in my own hell on the climb. But the job had to be done. Anne and I had been tormented by this challenge for a long time.
Imagine then the outright sense of jubilant satisfaction we shared as we clamoured to reach the summit and stand in the sun and savour a glorious mug of piping-hot chicken soup thrust in our hands. Around us we could surveyed and savour the beaten deep valleys now fading away below and the snow-capped neighbouring mountains we could at last look in the eye. We were winners at last!
Rugby angle
Of course, in any half-decent piece of New Zealand adventure there has to be a rugby angle written in.
On top of this mountain, miles away from any goalposts, there is. It turns out Quintin MacKinnon was a rugby player. He had appeared for the Otago team in the first ever rep game played in New Zealand.
That was against Canterbury in 1882, six years before he and another sturdy chap Ernest Mitchell were to become the first men to hack their way over the top of the mountain. The two tossed a coin and the track was named after the rugby man.
To honour MacKinnon there is a monument at the top which was paid for in part by the Otago Rugby Football Union. It says so on a plaque right there. It must be one of the furthest flung sporting monuments anywhere.
I marked that statue and its story to our companions (who not surprisingly seemed only moderately interested as they rested) and then we began the downward part of the day, heading down the other side.
If we thought the going up was tough the going downwards was grimmer yet. Not only were the rocks on the descent the same type but even more precision and respect had to be paid to them with each step. Not to mention the downward pressure put on two aching knees.
But I made it; all of our party did and warm were the celebrations that night in the Quintin Lodge as we supped our beers and reflected on that day's eight hour slog.
Day four was the final day. It was overcast and warm and this time the walking was to be another test.
Total concentration
Firstly, it was a measure of one's recovery from the previous day's exertion, but as well there was more total concentration needed. The last days walk is 13ý miles (21kms) through some undulating but always scenic terrain. Right now it seems easy to tap out the words here, but it was another eight hours of dedication we each had to put in to our dreams.
As we approached the end, the 33-mile marker having been passed, I searched in my shoulder pack and a camera was produced.
The finish line at Sandfly Point had not changed a jot. Now there is a new shed there on a jetty but it is still just the wooden sign hanging limply there, with a few old pairs of boots chucked there to mark some earlier walker's moments of celebration (or retirement!) The sign is photographed every day by each walker at his or her completion.
This time for Anne and I the moment of attainment to pose there had greater personal implication. I held up the old photo and we tried to match the stance of 1994.
We had fully completed the walk this time. I quoted Edmund Hillary's 'we knocked the bastard off' to some of our overseas visitors who were not familiar with his famous Everest words. They smiled. Our little group, complete strangers just four days earlier, hugged like we were family.
All of us, now able to claim our own Everest of achievement, could reflect on a walk you do not have to be whippet-like to walk over. Just sensibly fit, prepared and determined. And also resolute and unwavering with a need to put something fully right which the weather gods had not allowed us to do so last time.
The whole trip when you stay in the three Lodges and eat three times a day costs about $2000 per person. To walk the track as a freedom walker is cheaper. We thought it was all great value. Our thanks go to the Department of Conservation and all those who keep the Milford Track in the magnificent order it is.
And thanks go to all our new friends. It was great to be back.
And we have the pictures to prove it.
Click here to read part one
