The Routeburn Track

Before Christmas came and went, we had one last adventure in the South island.
We love walking so much that we decided to walk some more, in fact another 36k along the Routeburn Track. We' ve now walked about 100k around New Zealand, which for Sam, is more than she has driven in our campervans over the last three and a half months :)
The walk that everyone wants to do in NZ is the Milford track, in fact its so popular that its booked up in advance for months and so we couldn't go on it. Our second choice was the Routeburn track, a walk that takes you through forests and alpine mountain ranges and in many peoples opinion is actually the more scenic of the two tracks, as for much of the Milford, you are walking in a valley, not up in the mountains themselves. Having learnt our lessons from the Abel Tasman walk, we got ourselves kitted out with brand new rucksacks, took along some decent grub and I made sure I had a good book with me and Sam, as her OCD dictates, took her knitting.
The Routeburn track starts about forty minutes bus journey from Glenorchy, which is itself about an hour from Queenstown. Arriving at two in the afternoon we set off into a forest and gradually headed uphill, along the way spotting three mice and a small parakeet, not all at once you understand. We emerged from the wood into the valley you see above, surrounded by high mountains and had a snack before continuing our climb. Rounding a corner in the forest we came upon a man holding some shears. This was either a Psycho about to murder us or a Ranger clearing shrubbery from the path. Luckily it was the latter and he accompanied us on the remaining short journey to our first hut, the Routeburn Falls hut. Along the way he picked some leaves from a bush and said a lot of travellers ate them, saying they tasted a bit like chocolate. I nibbled the corner of one, but thought it tasted weird, so spat it out, Sam said to him she thought they might be poisonous which of course he denied, but we were then convinced he was actually a Psycho Ranger, the third option that we had forgotten. The Falls hut had a great view of a valley and the mountains and a waterfall just behind it. We ate a Tuna salad with dressing that we'd pre-made, much nicer than space food. We crashed out in the bunk room which was basically, rows of bunk beds and this time there was no hanky-panky to endure, it was very cold though and we didn't get much sleep. The next day found us climbing once again up through a valley and onwards through the mountains. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the scenery got better and better as the day wore on. Lunchtime brought us to a day shelter next to the beautiful Lake Harris, which as you can see had an amazing green colour around the edges. After another quality salad for lunch we decided to climb Conical Hill. We'd been told that morning that the hill walk was closed due to two sections of snow, one of which if you slipped could lead to a rather nasty fall. However lots of people were still doing this section of the walk and the views at the top of the hill were meant to be spectacular so we decided to go as high as we could without taking too many risks. The first section of snow we came to was very steep and we carefully made our way up it digging our feet in deeply as we went, fashioning our own stairs out of the snow. It must have been about a hundred or so meters long, but straight uphill. After clambering up some rocks after that we came to the second section of snow. This was the dodgy bit and you could see that if you slipped and couldn't stop yourself, you would plummet down the side of the mountain to your possible doom. Sam decided on staying where she was, but I had to continue, so close to the top I had to see the views. Taking it very slowly and carefully, really digging my feet in, following previous walkers footsteps I inched my way up to the top. In fact it was fairly easy in the end and when I got to the top I was rewarded with 360 degree incredible views of the surrounding mountains. You could even see right down to the Tasman sea. I knew Sam had to see it, so I went back down to get her, but she had already decided to come up and so I met her halfway. It's definitely one of the best landscape views I've experienced in my life, up there with Yosemite (USA), Sapa (Vietnam), Western Oz (the whole of) and the views of Mount Cook and Tasman here in NZ. Getting back down the mountain was a bit trickier. The first and more scary section proved the easier, the second section involved Sam going at a snails pace and me slipping and sliding on my bum and then coming back up again to help Sam and then Sam telling me off for not helping her :)
We spent the afternoon walking along a track that ran along the side of the mountains looking down on a valley on our way to the second hut of the journey. The second hut was situated at the bottom of another valley by a lake called Lake Mackenzie. It was another picture perfect location to spend the night at. The lake was gorgeous and at time almost mirror like. Some nutty types were having a quick swim when we got there, the water must have been about 10 degrees! Another hut, another mad ranger, who gave us all a fire briefing in the style of someone who has always wanted to be a stand up comedian, but who instead is someone who spends far to much time in the woods...alone. For those of you interested in camp cooking ( I don't mean gay cooking Alex) we had instant mash with Mexican beans and salami, again miles nicer that space food. Apart from bringing better food, we also brought condiments in small snap lock baggies. Salt, Pepper, Chilli flakes and grated cheese were some of the little 'luxuries' that made everything taste much better.
The last day of our walk saw us strolling a mere three hours through a wood. It had turned into a bit of a crappy day and we were pleased to finally get to the third and last hut. We camped out in the hut, virtually the only people there, me reading and Sam knitting. Our peace and tranquility was spoilt somewhat by an exceedingly annoying Scottish mother, who began ordering people around as soon as she entered and ended up filling the hut with smoke, setting off the fire alarm, as she ordered some hapless bloke to light a fire with wet wood. Nice one. Finishing the walk the next day we were collected by a bus for a visit to see Milford Sound before being taken back to Queenstown later that day. Milford Sound is the most famous tourist destination in NZ. It's where the boat journey in the first Lord of the Rings film was filmed and is the first of about thirteen fjords that stretch down this bit of the west coast, surprisingly its called Fjordland. Unfortunately the weather was shockingly awful, rain, mist and low lying clouds meant that the dramatic features of the Sound could hardly be seen and so the best photo I took was this one of Sam :) Getting back to Queenstown was great, it's the nicest town we've been in NZ, so beautiful, but after another day there we had to get going to Christchurch over on the east coast. On the way there we drove past Mount Cook again and this time saw it spectacularly mirrored in another lake. I've never seen anything quite like it. Stunning!




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Listening to: Cinerama - Va Va Voom