Called the finest walk in the world since a Victorian-era journalist coined the phrase, Milford Track still lives up to it across four days through Fiordland.
Access is tightly controlled — a boat in across Lake Te Anau, a single direction of travel, a fixed number of hikers per day, and three Great Walk huts booked months in advance for the November-to-April season. I crossed Mackinnon Pass on the second morning in a rare clear window, the kind locals say happens on maybe one day in three given Fiordland's rainfall.
The descent off the pass runs beside Sutherland Falls, one of the tallest waterfalls in the country, close enough that the trail gets a fine mist on breezy days. Sandflies are the real hazard here, not weather — I wore repellent from the first hour and still spent an entire evening in a hut common room being quietly eaten alive.
Book through the Department of Conservation the moment the season opens; huts sell out within hours for the popular months. If independent hiking dates don't work, guided trips run the same route with private lodges and hot showers, at several times the price but considerably less logistics.
