Over the weekend, I did the 33km Routeburn Track, which goes from Mt. Aspiring National Park at the head of Lake Wakatipu across to Fiordland, the largest national park in New Zealand. The Routeburn is renowned as being one of the two best walks in New Zealand (the other is the Milford), and now I understand why. I feel like my friend Nick from Fox Glacier when I say that I’ve completely run out of superlatives to describe New Zealand. I could say the walk was stunning, spectacular, magnificent, wondrous, dramatic, or breathtaking, but it really wouldn’t do it justice. Plus, since it was less than half of the distance of some of the walks I’ve done (the Queen Charlotte, for instance), it wasn’t exceptionally tiring, although I always find it difficult to sleep in a room with 24 other people moving around. Curse being a light sleeper!

I did the first day of the walk with a really great couple–Sue and Trevor–that I met in the hostel the night before starting. They’re from Perth and were really helpful; they answered lots of questions about the town and now I actually know a few people that live there! We started the track together at about 9.30am. The beginning wasn’t very difficult–a bit of climbing but nothing major–and soon we were at the Routeburn Flats Hut. We ate an early lunch there while it spat with rain before continuing the climb. I was really happy that Sue and Trevor kept going, since they had planned to turn around at the Flats, because this was definitely the best part of the day’s walk. Even though it was misty, we got great views all down the Routeburn Valley, with the yellow Routeburn Flats at the base and massive green-clad mountains all around them.

Unfortunately Sue and Trevor had to turn around at Routeburn Falls Hut, since they were only doing a day walk, although this meant that they were lucky enough to only be carrying day packs. They looked a little funny walking with me and my huge pack (once again weighing in at around 40lbs because I couldn’t leave anything behind since I won’t be returning to Queenstown for a while). We started telling people I was their sherpa that they paid to carry all of their gear!

The 48 of us staying at Routeburn Falls Hut spent the rest of the night hanging out, cooking dehydrated food, watching it rain, talking, and listening to the hut warden. John was a very organized warden who had methods to describe for everything–cleaning in the morning, where to look for all of your stuff so you don’t forget it, etc. He described what keas–mountain parrots that are said to be the smartest birds in the world–can do when he told us that someone had left their raincoat outside and the next morning all that was left were five small strips of red cloth. All of us put our gear inside after that! John also set out a challenge to all of us. He had a poster on which he had collected the phrase “Welcome to Routeburn Falls. Merry Christmas.” in over 30 different languages. If any group could identify 25 of them correctly, they would win a large bar of chocolate. All of our eyes lit up when he said that, and we formed groups and got to work. My group had Lowell and Karen, a nice American couple, in it, as while as quite a few other collaborators. We managed to get 23 of the languages correct, but the hut warden still wouldn’t give us the chocolate, even after all that hard work identifying Maori, Welsh, Basque, Catalan, and other more obscure languages. Fortunately I had my own chocolate to make up for it!

I’m very fortunate to have picked the bunkroom that I did, because the other bunkroom had a man that snored so loudly we could hear him through the walls!

The next morning we woke up to a bit more sun. It was still sprinkling rain and everything was soaking wet, but it was a start! I got fantastic views of the Routeburn Valley as I worked my way up to Harris Saddle–there was even some blue sky! After working uphill for about an hour and 45 minutes (which included copious photo stops so I could get every angle of the valley and the river flowing through it), I made it to the Harris Saddle Shelter, which is pretty much a little building where trampers can hide from the weather and have a bit of a snack. Just above the saddle is Conical Hill, which stands at over 1500m tall and supposedly offers great views of multiple valleys from the top. Even though all we could see was a wall of cloud rising from the Lake Mackenzie side of the saddle, quite a few of us decided to give the climb a try. Fortunately, we could leave our packs in the shelter so it was a chance to give our shoulders and hips a rest!

The view from the top–which four of us reached after 30-35 minutes of climbing up steep rocky slopes–was as expected…that is, cloudy. Every once in a while, they would clear and we would get a glimpse of a waterfall or a lake. Everyone rushed for their cameras, but as soon as one was out, the clouds closed back in. About halfway down the mountain the clouds were clear enough that we got to see Harris Saddle and the area that we had just walked from, so it wasn’t all for nothing!

Anyway, I only have 3 minutes left on the internet, so I’ll have to continue my Routeburn story in part 2, which will probably be written tomorrow when it starts raining heavily again!