A new Year - New adventures: Routeburn and Greenstone Track

Queenstown was pumping on New Years eve and there was a flavour of meat market in the air. The weather was again beautiful and we had a cool soak in lake Wakatipu. I don't really like Queenstown at all. It is way to commercialised and it feels very un-kiwi. All businesses are tourism related and lots of rich tourists have bought sections there, which has made it pretty much unaffordable for a kiwi with a normal salary to buy a house in this area. Sad really.

We camped by the Lake a few kilometers away from the pumping Q-town. We cut any boozing down to a minimum and went to bed at a shocking 11 pm, since we had to get up pretty early the following day for our two day mission over Routburn Track and back towards lake Wakatipu over the Caples Track.




The Routeburn track is uincredibly popular and you have to book places in the huts months in advance. Stuff that! The track is actually not very long at all (about 30 km)and you can easily do it as a one day trip.The tricky part is the transportation back to the Queenstown side from the end of the track which is on the Milford side. It is a 5 hr drive back. We tackled this issue by taking the Greenstone Track back with a boat booked to take us back over Lake Wakatipu to the van in Glenorchy.


We had been pretty cunning to try to reduce the amount of gear we brought with us. With an overnight trip, you have to carry a sleeping bag, mat, cooking gear etc. A day earlier, when we were driving towards Q-town from Milford, we passed the car park which is the start/end of Routeburn track. While it was pouring down rain Charlie sneaked into the bush and hid a parcel wrapped with lots of plastic bags containing all the overnight stuff we needed at the end of the run. This great plan saved us quite a few kilos that we didn't have to run with on our backs. By now, I have seen most of the tracks which are labelled "Great walks" in New Zealand. I must say that Routburn Track is the best one so far! The views were amazing and it is an ideal tramp for peple that haven't tried it before. The track still feels challenging, more so than Milford Sound and Kepler. I was very impressed.
On our way up to Harris Saddle looking back towards the valley we climbed up.
We could not have asked for better weather. At the top of Harris Saddle (about 1300 m), we enjoyed the sun and the lunch. We realised that we would finish quite early and our original plan to hang around by the road shelter until darkness seemed stupid. We would simply end up spending hours fighting sandflies and we agreed that it would be better to pick up the gear from the bush and continue to the first hut along the Greenstone Track. With a revised plan we got a wiggle on.
Running down from Harris Saddle with Fiordland behind me.


Lake McKenzie

A brief sugar low before reaching McKenzie Lodge.

In general, both of us felt great! When we approached the carpark, we were both worries that something might have happened to our well hidden stash of food and gear. Maybe a curious Kea (mountain parrot that loves ripping up stuff with the beak) would have picked lots of holes into our sleeping bags, rats might have sniffed the food which we had put into sealed plastic boxes, or maybe just someone gready would have found it, ignored our note and stolen it...well, none of this had happened. The parcel was still there and we had a cook up by the shelter before we continued towards Mckellar Hut.

We had a lovely meal at McKellar Hut qith many almond golds for dessert, which we deserved after 10 hrs on the run. We had in total covered just over 40 km. I didn't feel that tired that night, but I felt really TIRED the next day when we had to run out to the boat, which would take us to back to Glenorchy. We had plenty of time but I think Charlie was a bit worried that we wouldn't make it on time. I was getting really cranky and was lagging behind quite a bit. I got really annoyed when we managed to run off track since this is a path marked with very large orange markers. Charlie was trying to make me run faster but it didn't work. "This is meant to be a fun-run" I said with a whinging voice...I was not having fun. I had fun afterwards when we were back in the van with food and a shower. I think the Stewart Island tramp earlier the same week had made me a lot more tired than I first thought.

Well, we were coming towards the end of the summer holiday. We drove up along the West Coast and stayed a night in Okarito, which is a small fishing community just north of Frans Josef. I really like the place since I was there the first time for my friend Clare's hens do 2 years ago.

The weather was gorgeous and we hired a kayak to check out the bird life in the Okarito Lagoon. We were hoping to see some white herons or even better some spoon bills, but the kayak people said that we would be lucky if we would see one spoon bill maybe. Well this was our jackpot day!! We saw 5 spoonbills and heaps of white herons!! The spoon bills look very cool with a black bill which they filter through the water. They look very funny with a fluffy white mane that flapps around in the wind.

We headed back to Chch after 2 weeks filled with adventures. It was such a wicked summer holiday with only 2 days of rain!!