BigBlueBugBlog: The Routeburn Track

The Routeburn track is one of New Zealand’s nine Great Walks and is widely regarded one of the best tracks in the world. It crosses between Mt. Aspiring National Park and Fiordland National Park.

Because of our car troubles we made a serious effort to make it down to Queenstown to catch our transport to the start of the track. We arrived, fully packed and prepared, at the transport office half an hour early, on Thursday April 6. As many of you can attest, when Laura and I arrive on time for anything, especially in the early morning, it is a small miracle. We were amazed ourselves and I even remember Laura saying, “This is weird that we are early, things are running so smoothly, and nothing has gone wrong yet!” We proudly walked over to the check in counter to confirm our booking and board our transport. The attendant, unaffected by our apparent enthusiasm, scanned his list for our names. “I’m sorry,” he said in a very confused tone, “you are not on my list.” It seems that in our impassioned attempt to be on time, we actually showed up one day in advance!

Despite our mistake, we regrouped and decided to jump on the track a day early. The forecast was predicting awful weather of rain and falling hobbits beginning the following day into the foreseeable future. We decided to make the best of our early arrival by taking advantage of the good weather and make an attempt to beat the incoming storm up to the Harris Saddle. The saddle is the highest point of the track at an elevation of 1255m with commanding views of the Hollyford Valley through to the Tasman Sea.

Our bus ride to the start of the track was pretty incredible. From Queenstown we made our way over to a small town named Glenorchy. Small in the sense that there were only l0,000 sheep there. Here we made our final changes to our bookings and then changed them again. Our bus driver was a very informative and tall kiwi dude. In between giving us facts about Mt. Aspiring National Park and bragging to us about how great the views are he practiced his karaoke versions of a number of Coldplay songs. This was only slightly tolerable because it was better than listening to the entire greatest hits album of Michael Bolton which actually happened on our bus ride to Arthur’s Pass.

With the angelic voice of our guide still humming in our heads we ventured onto the track. The first leg of the track crossed a number of swing-bridges as it followed the Routeburn River. The forest was thick and lush and is home to a number of unique native birds. The river was so clean and fresh that the water seemed turquoise. We made it to our hut about 2 hours into the walk.

After some brief resting and a quick lunch by a beautiful river, we consolidated our things to begin our 3-4 hour journey to Harris Saddle. The walk up was a bit tricky as parts of the track can be pretty rocky, wet and steep, but we were rewarded by stunning views of ice capped mountains tearing through the clouds. Some other highlights were Harris Lake and its surrounding waterfalls and the very delicate alpine foliage. The higher we went the greater our views east were, but the clouds towards the west began to grow.
Unfortunately, the rain and the clouds beat us up to the saddle. It was just after 4pm and we were very discouraged because we forced our way all the way up only to be swamped by clouds and pouring rain. We were determined to make the long journey back down to our hut before dark. The rain and wind intensified making it much more difficult to walk down than anticipated. We pushed ourselves a bit too much and Laura ended up straining her knee. Cold, wet, and disheartened we safely made it back down to our hut.

That evening we made a warm meal and shared the hut with an older couple from Auckland and a young vegan woman from Belgium. After the sunset, the doors to the hut opened up and in came three Kiwi guys with large rifles. This was a bit of a shock! They were very friendly and explained to us that it was “roaring” season. Basically, it was the best time of year for deer hunting. I thought it was funny situation because they shared their bunkroom with a vegan.

Then next day Laura made a valiant effort to make it back up to the saddle, but the added weight of a full pack on a strained knee was too much and we turned back. The weather took a turn for the worse and really began to rain. We made friends with the hut warden named Fiona and spent the entire day in her warm and dry quarters just talking and drinking tea. She and Laura even made a chocolate cake.

That night there were more people staying at the hut and oddly enough, most of them were Americans! We have not met many other Americans, as it seems that it is not typical for Americans to travel for more that a few weeks and we keep meeting Germans and Dutch folk that seem to be here for months at a time. It was nice to spend some time with Americans. We shared conversations about New Zealand slang, American news, books that we have read while travelling, and of course good old American sarcasm.

That next day we hiked out the way we came in and caught the one hour bus ride back to Queenstown. If we actually made it to the end of the track it would have been a five hour ride! As the weather began to clear, we put on some dry clothes and climbed into the Pounamou Palace. Relieved and excited to make it down to Te Anau, I placed the key in the ignition and turned and nothing happened! Here we go again!