Routeburn Track (Day 3)

Today was the last day of the track. We woke up early again to a beautiful sunrise over the Routeburn Valley. We had a quick breakfast and some hot chocolate then headed out as I had to make sure to be back to Queenstown in time for my 4:30 flight back home. The last leg of the track was mostly downhill and was much easier than the rest of the track. It ended up only taking us a little over 2 hours to finish, which put us way ahead of schedule. It was Leslie's birthday and since we were in the middle of nowhere and I didn't have any presents, I made her a cake out of a rock, some mud, and a stick for a candle. She was very happy but didn't eat any of her cake.

It was a relief to finish the track but it had been a wonderful time with some of the most gorgeous scenery I had ever seen. We drove back to Queenstown taking in the beautiful sites of the Dart River Valley along the way. This Valley is near Glenorchy and was the scenery for Isengard in the Lord of the Rings movies. Once back in Queenstown, we had a nice big breakfast before Leslie dropped me off at the airport (she carried on to Milford Sound for a couple of days). For whatever reason, the annoying employees at the airport would not let me on an earlier flight even though there were empty seats as it is the airline's "policy" not to do this unless I pay for a whole new ticket so I sat around a read a book for a while. It was a great long weekend and I didn't want to get back to work...oh well, all good things must come to an end sometime.

Leslie with her "Birthday Cake"



View of the Routeburn Valley



Me crossing one of the suspension bridges


At the bottom of the Routeburn Valley

Leslie crossing the last bridge before the end of the track

Triumphant Finish!

The drive back to Queenstown

View of the river from one of the many single-lane bridges

Dart River Valley

More beautiful scenery

18 Km away

What would NZ be without the sheep?

It seems strange to have palm trees in this cooler environment

Lake Wakatipu

View of Queenstown from up one of the mountains

Routeburn Track (Day 2)

We woke up bright and early today after going to bed so early the night before. It was a beautiful day and the rain had finally gone away! The weather can change quickly here so we made sure to get on the trail early after a quick breakfast. We had another 12Km or so to go before getting to our next hut called Routeburn Falls hut. To get there, the first half of the day was uphill and into the mountains overlooking the Hollyford Valley. We had a beautiful morning for this part of the track with stunning views out into the Darran Mountains and over the Valley. Just as we were leaving the Valley, the clouds started rolling in as the day heated up and completely filled it in. It was crazy how fast they rolled in so thank goodness we started early when we did or we wouldn't have even realised the beautiful sights we were missing.

After we left the Hollyford Valley, we finally made it to the highest point of the Routeburn Track at the Harris Saddle. Here there were a couple of cabins for day use and emergency shelter only so we took a break for lunch. After relaxing a bit, we decided to do an optional side track up Conical Hill which was about an hour hike up a fairly steep mountain to get some good views out over the valley and of Harris Lake. By this point, a good bit of cloud cover had rolled in, but we still had some nice views at the top of Conical Hill. It was a tough climb but worth the effort.

After, we began our descent to the Routeburn Falls Hut where we would spend the night. This hut was very nice. The bunks were less crammed together with separate sleeping areas of 4 bunks each. The front porch of the hut had beautiful views out over Routeburn Valley. Again, we had a nice dinner and relaxed, taking in the wonderful views, before calling it a night. Today had been great and I saw some of the prettiest views I have ever seen in my life.

Me and Leslie climbing up the mountain with Lake MacKenzie below.

Me continuing the hike up

Beautiful view out over the are we had hiked through the previous day

Stunning View (and I'm not just referring to me in the picture)

Me with Hollyford Valley and Darran Mountains in background

Leslie taking it all in

The mountains up here had glaciers on them as you can sort of see in the background

Me on the hobbit trail

Me with Hollyford Valley in background

Bilbo
Les taking a break at the Harris Saddle

View of the Harris Saddle huts from hike up Conical Hill

Les at the top of Conical Hill

Me walking out to the edge of one of the lookout points up to Conical Hill





Lake Harris

Routeburn Valley (the roof of the Routeburn Falls Hut where we stayed is at the bottom).


Routeburn Falls


The view from the front porch of the Hut

Routeburn Track - Queenstown then Day 1

Queenstown Airport

It's been a long time since my last blog update so I apologise to anyone out there who is actually interested in this stuff. I've been busy with work then away in Samoa for the last two weeks without much Internet so am finally getting a chance to update this.

As I mentioned in my last couple of entries, my friend Leslie was out visiting for a couple of weeks. We decided to go on a multi-day hike on what is considered one of New Zealand's "Great Walks" called the Routeburn Track. I was fortunate enough to be able to get a Friday off of work and left early Thursday afternoon to catch a flight down to Queenstown on the southern part of the South Island which is the closest decent-sized city to the Routeburn Track.

We flew into Queenstown airport and had plenty of beautiful views of the mountain ranges along the way. Queenstown is surrounded by mountains and it seemed as if the plane came awfully close to the mountains on its descent. The surrounding area of Queenstown is absolutely stunning with lakes and mountains all around the city which itself is a quaint tourist town. It was autumn here and it really felt like it with leaves changing colors and the crisp air.

The Routeburn track is not a circuit and can be started from either end. One end is about an hour drive from Queenstown and the other end is over in Fiordland National Park which is about a three and a half hour drive from Queenstown. Due to my limited time as I had to be back at work on Monday, we decided to start at the far end and finish in Queenstown on Sunday so that I would be close to the airport in order to catch my 4:30 flight back to Auckland. Therefore, we would take a shuttle bus to the start of the track near Te Anau. We rented a car to drop off at the Queenstown end of the track so that we would have it waiting for us when we finished.

The first evening was spent dropping of the rental car at the trail head and getting a nice dinner in Queenstown before heading out. A couple of the photos below show some of the nice scenery around Queenstown on the drive to drop the car off.

We had a 3.5 hour bus ride the following morning to start the track so had to get up bright and early to catch the 7:00 bus. It is nearly winter time now in New Zealand so the days are much shorter and it gets dark at around 6:00. Therefore, we had a busy first day as we planned to hike about 12Km to get to the hut once we actually got to the start of the track. The drive to the Routeburn track was beautiful - this area of the island is definitely one of the prettiest. We unloaded some of the passengers in Te Anau where they would catch a boat to the beginning of the Milford Track which is another of the "Great Walks" and probably the most popular track in New Zealand. All of the Great Walks require reservations for the huts through the DOC website and sell out quickly each year for the most popular hikes during the peak times. Milford was not available for us, but luckily there were spots on the Routeburn track which some people say is actually better than Milford (It is in the top 11 tracks in the world per National Geographic Adventure Magazine - see article here). It was towards the end of the hiking season (in fact only about a week left officially) so it was possible that it would be pretty cold, but it ended up being a pretty nice temperature.

The weather held out for us on the bus ride the entire way until we literally pulled into the parking lot of the start of the track when it started to rain. Unfortunately, this rain was not going to give up the first day. It was a bit disappointing as the low clouds and fog limited some of the views and we got soaking wet, but the moss-covered forests were absolutely beautiful and this part of the track had a lot of waterfalls which were better due to the rain. We didn't get a whole lot of pictures on the first day due to the rain but really did enjoy it despite the weather. All of the guidebooks say to expect at least one day of rain on the 3-day hike as this part of NZ gets its share of wet weather. The first day was mostly uphill so was fairly tiring although not too bad (compared to the Pinnacles hike that I talked about in an earlier post, this was much more of a gradual & manageable uphill). The second day would be half uphill until reaching the summit then mostly downhill for the next day and a half.

We got to the hut at around 4:30 just as the rain was easing up. We were totally soaked so it was nice to change in to some semi-dry clothes, cook up some hot soup for dinner, and hang out in the kitchen/common room of the hut for a while where it was nice and warm with a big fire. It's quite the communal feeling with lots of other hikers from all over the world. It was great to talk to some people and rest for a bit, but after such a long, wet, and tiring day, Leslie and I couldn't make it past about 8:30 before heading to bed. The bunk rooms are pretty nice but in this cabin (Mackenzie Hut), they are all right next to each other. Fortunately, the bunk room wasn't full so we weren't crammed in and breathing on strangers while we slept. It was a good first day but we were hoping for better weather tomorrow.

Te Anau Downs - this is where the Milford Track begins. It's about another hour drive to Routeburn from here.

Me at the start of the Track

Elevation map of the hike

Leslie looking like a crippled Quasimoto crossing one of the small waterfalls. They say that you will definitely get wet, muddy boots on the track and they were definitely right about the wet part.

The moss-covered forests were beautiful

Leslie at the Howden Hut where we stopped for lunch and took a break from the rain.

Me in the strange forest

Lake Mackenzie Hut

Great Barrier Island (Day 3-4)

Today was Easter! We got up early again to catch the sunrise and make another delicious breakfast of eggs (and Cadbury Mini-Eggs as it was Easter) and hot chocolate. Today we would begin with a venture to the Kaitoke Hot Springs track. These were some natural hot springs on the island that flowed into a small river making the water as hot as bath water. It was a nice 45 min. walk to get to the springs where we spent about an hour relaxing in the warm mineral water. It was pretty cool, but also kind of gross as there were a bunch of other people around and the water was a bit muddy. See a few pictures below:


Michelle, Chi, Paula, Leslie, and me relaxing in the hot pool

Chi, Michelle, and Paula in the kiddie pool

New Zealand Fern (or Koru) on the hike back to the carpark

The next stop was Medlands Beach to enjoy the sun and pick some Green Lipped Mussels for dinner. If you recall from an earlier post, New Zealand is famous for its Green Lipped Mussels and we found a bunch of them on the rocks around the beach. We gathered handfuls of them for dinner then hung out on the rocks and the beach for a while before heading back to our Bach.

Medlands Beach

Picking Mussels on Medlands Beach

New Zealand Green-Lipped Mussels

Hanging out on the rocks at Medlands Beach

Picturesque View at Tryphena Beach

Once arriving back at the Bach, we all relaxed for a bit then started prepping for dinner. We would be enjoying yet another feast of the rest of the Snapper we caught the previous day as well as the fresh mussels we had so vigilantly hunted today with a bunch of veggies, pasta, and more. It was a great dinner and I could hardly move, but there was still another surprise waiting. It was Paula's birthday and James had arranged for one of the local restaurants to make her a B-day cake. We secretly picked it up during one of the petrol stops earlier in the day. We all sang happy B-day to PK, then sat around and talked for a while before hitting the sack. It was another enjoyable and relaxing day.

The women prepping the kitchen



Mmmm...those mussels were great!


Happy Birthday Paula

We even had noise makers and little pop rocket confetti things.

The next morning, Leslie and I woke up early to do some sea kayaking. We had rented a kayak from one of the local shops the day before, and luckily it hadn't yet fallen off of the Bongo, so we took it out at around 7:30 to Tryphena Harbor. The sea was really calm and pretty and it was a gorgeous morning to get out on the ocean. We took our time paddling around the bays and checking out the boats docked in the area. The water was really clear and pretty warm, but I didn't want to fall in because we had heard there were sharks in the area. We had a great time, then headed back to the Bach at around 10:00 in order to pack up to catch our flight back to Auckland. When we returned the kayak on the way to the airport, we passed our favorite bakery called the "LunchBox" that made the best cream-filled donuts. We all had our fair share then headed to the airport to catch our tiny plane back. It was a great long weekend with beautiful weather, lovely company, and lots of relaxation. I really didn't want to get back to work.

The BEST donuts in the world


Steve and I partaking in our donuts (and discussing our future restaurant business that I can't give away any details of here as people will steal our idea).



The cozy plane back to Auckland

Me wishing I didn't have to leave


GBI from the air

Once we returned back to Auckland, I took Leslie to Mt. Eden to see the large volcanic crater in the city that you've seen pictures of in previous posts. Then we headed out to Mission Bay area to walk around and grab an ice cream while the sun set. Tomorrow I would be heading to Tauranga for a couple of days of work but was really excited to get through that as Leslie and I were heading to Queenstown Thursday afternoon to embark on the Routeburn track.

Leslie and me at Mt. Eden

Auckland sunset out near Mission Bay (Leslie's silhouette)

Me in front of Auckland during the sunset