The Routeburn Track

We originally booked the Routeburn Track for December 2-4 and had been pushing it off ever since waitingfor a break in the weather. That break had finally come and we found ourselves starting the track on December 10. The Routeburn is another hike that rivals the Milford and was our last Great Walk, making five out of nine that we hiked.Our first night was booked at Routeburn Flats Campsite which didn’t sound appealing and we had heard the first day of hiking was pretty boring so we went into it with low expectations . The walk was actually really great, following a gorge like area with a river running through. There was added excitement too as we stumbled upon the end of a rescue. A kid hopped over the fence and fell 15 feet off a cliff edge into a churning bowl of freezing cold water with no way out except by rescue. He was very lucky and ended up walking away from the incident without as much as a scratch and even held on to his sunglasses.

The campsite turned out to be a highlight, despite it’s unflattering name. We were extra pleased knowing our third night on this hike would be back at this campsite. We chose to do an out and back walk, which meant climbing up to the saddle on days two and three, in hope that one of the two would be a nice day. Also, if you walk the track from one end to the other, you have to get transportation back and it would take probably 5 hours on a bus, not to mention about $45/pp. It ended upthat both days had good, but different weather. Day two brought us sun, blue sky, and high clouds for the first half of the hike up to the saddle. We thought our luck with the weather had run out though as the grey clouds moved through, blocking our view. But as we continued on the trail, the clouds passed through and presented us with a expansive view of the Darran Mountains as well as opening up enough to give us a look all the way out to the fiords and the sea. As the clouds moved, a new sky was continually re-created. The whole crossing took about 5 hours before we descended through the Fairy Glen, a beautiful moss covered forest (straight out of LTR), to Lake MacKenzie.

Another highlight of the day was meeting a couple from Seattle who gave us great advice on Thailand as well as suggesting another hike at Mt. Cook. This same hike they referred to had been mentioned to us earlier in the day by an Israeli traveler who said it was his favorite place in New Zealand. He told us this as we were standing in what was the most beautiful place we had been yet in New Zealand. After these two strong recommendations, we knew we would have to give it a look.

Lake MacKenzie was our campsite for night two. We pitched our tent on one of the 10 mini golf patches of turf (it was very odd), sharing the area with19 others from an Australian school group. Rain was forecasted for day three and we awoke to sprinkles in the morning and no mountains in sight. We were thankful for our one day of beautiful hiking and started off back up to the saddle in the clouds and light rain. To our surprise after 2-3 hours of hiking the sun broke out and the rest of the day was very nice. We were once more back at Routeburn Flats where John fashioned a tent awning to keep us dry as we looked out at the mountains. He even got some compliments from the Dept of Conservation ranger who was very impressed at the set up and referred to it as our “hotel” (we were actually worried she might make us take it down so we were happy to hear her enthusiasm for the set up).

Our fourth and last day of hiking on the Routeburn was motivated by the knowledge that we would reward ourselves with a Fergburger, which was described by Lonely Planet as “possibly NZ’s best burger.” We couldn’t pass that up! We hiked quickly and were at the Fergburger joint by noon and couldn’t have been happier.