Routeburn Track Day 1

The Routeburn Track is one of New Zealand’s 9 ‘Great Walks’. It traverses two national parks in the south-west of the south island – Mount Aspiring and Fiordland National Parks. This track is not an original old route for Maori, miners or loggers, but was invented by tourism, with the first visitors arriving in the 1880s. They came by horse as far as the river flats and were then guided on foot to the Harris Saddle, the highest point of the walk from the 1880s. The second half of the route was added much later.

This tramp is the main focus of the holiday Debbie and I are spending together and this is her first New Zealand tramping experience. We will be walking for 3 days and staying overnight in two huts and we are very lucky that the weather is set fair for the next 3 days.

Day 1

In the early morning we check out of our nice cosy hostel and as I walk down to admire the beautiful blue and calm of the lake, I notice a plaque in front of the building dedicated to the first residents of Kinloch in 1870. 

Bryant Family Plaque

Lake in front of the Hostel

To get to the trail head we have half an hour’s drive along a gravel road. The view looks so much as if it has come straight off the cover of a travel brochure for New Zealand that we have to stop to take a picture of the scene.  Sheep graze in green fields on the flat valley floor, with snow-capped mountains forming the backdrop.

Typically New Zealand

We are leaving Josephine parked here and we are paying a guy called Mike to drive her the 340km by road to the end of the track and then he will run back along the track. What we are taking 3 days to walk, he runs in about 3 hours! With boots laced tightly and sunscreen applied, we are ready for the walk. Debbie has a beautiful brand new rucksack for this adventure and as we haven’t got a bottle of champagne to crack over it (and anyway that would stain it), we mark the occasion by posing for this picture at the start of the track.

Starting the Routeburn Track

The track starts out flat and wide in the shade of a beech forest, with bridges crossing and re-crossing the river, before starting to climb up the valley side and then emerging into the sunshine on the flat grassland of the valley floor, where we stop for a short rest.

Bridge and Forest

River Flats

Next comes a steep climb, with glimpses of the mountains through the trees and we are soon looking back high over the valley floor where we rested.

View through the Trees

Valley View

About 4 ½ hours after setting out, we reach the hut for our first night. It is an enormous modern hut; the biggest I have stayed in so far, with 48 beds, snuggled into the trees just below the bush line and has a veranda looking out over the valley we have walked up today.

View from the Veranda

After a cup of tea and claiming our bunks the sun has already gone from the hut so we take the short walk recommended by the hut warden to scramble up the hill behind the hut, to make the most of the evening sunshine and admire the view from higher up. Immediately behind the hut the scenery is very different from what we have experienced so far today; it opens out and becomes alpine and rocky.  

Evening Walk

View from the Mountain Peak

Even up here the sun disappears early behind the mountains and by the time we return to the hut the almost-full moon has risen and seems to hang in the open space between the veranda and the mountains.

Moon

The hut has filled up with people of all nationalities and ages, and everyone is sorting out their gear, where they will sleep and cooking their evening meals. There is a group of young Singaporeans who sing together through the evening and a group of two Kiwi families with 4 adults and so many children who are never still in one place for long enough for me to count them. I find out later there are 9 children aged between 7 and 14 years old! This group arrive quite late so have no chance of getting beds together, so the children climb and swing from various top bunks to see where everyone is and clatter up and down the veranda in the dark. Fortunately, once they settle down for the night they sleep soundly.

Evening in the Hut