The weather forcast for today is not so good: it will snow in the afternoon over 1300m. Phil wakes me up at about 9am with a cup of tea and some hot porridge: that's a good friend! My clothes are perfectly dry and it's time to move.

I put my gloves, my rain coat and my second rain coat on. Yes, I bought a very thin plastic raincoat in Queenstown for 4.5NZ$ to back up my first rain coat especially for the head. It made the Kepler track and by now it's 'almost' in the bin :-)

Ok, We start going up to the Luxmore Pic and we can see amazing scenaries of mountain cap covers by this overnight snow.

Hopefully, the track is not covered with snow even on the top and the journey can continue smoothly and 2 hours later, we arrive at small refuge which looks like a big triangular tent but in wood. I rest a little bit and get some energy in the form of  chips, cholocate and peanuts.

The trail is now horizontal and the sun is starting to shine between the clouds. It's no more snowing and for the rest of the day, we will get some nice weather and some small showers too!

Another 2 hours later, we arrive at the second refuge. Then, it's starting to go down via some stairs and normal trails.

Suddenly, a boy and a girl passed me running: they only had a very small bag and were planning to do the whole Kepler treck in only 8 hours for 67km! I then heard from the ranger at the next hut that the record is 4 hours and something! There is a competition going on everyyear so if you think you can run 67km in less than 4 hours, you can win a tap on the shoulder and maybe a cup!? Anyway, I can't do it so fast and I prefer to take my time. But I think it's possible: some people from venezuela (not sure) are running all the time over hills and mountains because it's the only way they can communicate between villages.

Ok, back to the trail: now I enter an amazing rain forest with beatiful trees and it's a good idea to take some pictures and especially stereoscopic pictures ;-) You just have to take to pictures pointing to the same direction but a few cm appart (30cm is ok). Then, you can use an excellent free software: Index3D

The hut is at the river level in the valley and it's time for cool card games like 'shit head' and a very funny game (you need to concentrate!) where you all clap on the table twice, then snap left and snap right. At the same time, you snap left, you have to say your animal name (you choosed it before) and when you snap right, you have to say the animal name of someone that you choose in the group. Then, it's the turn of the this other person to say his animal name and and have to say: for example, it goes: clap clap monkey dog ... clap clap dog chicken. If someone miss his turn or doesn't say its name at the right snap snap tempo, he has to do the sound of the animal next and the people choosing him too. Then, if he misses again, he has to do some moves which mimic the animal. This game was introduced to us by a 25 year old german medical student and we played with isralis too!

Try it and it will make sense!