MitchMarch 8
At 9 a.m. we boarded another bus with our new guide, Rosie, to meet up with our next group and 3 other guides at a nearby cafe in Te Anau to start the Routeburn Track, a 3 day, 20-mile hike. There were 35 hikers on this trip and 4 guides. We did some introductions around the room, grabbed something light to eat and boarded our bus for the trailhead to the west end of the track at The Divide near Milford Sound. That’s the location just near the 45th parallel latitude, the halfway point between the Equator and the South Pole. The Divide is also the point that officially marks the division between the east and west parts of the South Island, so we officially started this hike on the West Coast of the South Island of NZ.
Unlike the Milford Track, you can hike The Routeburn in either direction and we were starting at The Divide and heading east to the Routeburn Shelter near a small town outside Queenstown called Glenorchy.
The Routeburn Track is in the NZ Fiordland and Mount Aspiring National Parks. The trail has an elevation gain of about 4,300 ft. The track’s highest point is near Harris Saddle, and its lowest point is 1,565 ft at the Routeburn Shelter, our final destination.
While this hike is considered generally easier than the Milford Track, as luck would have it, the first day was “the climb,” so we were back at it going straight up into the mountains with elevation, huffing, puffing and about 18 to 20 pounds of crap on our backs. After all, we did need a change of clothes, lots of water, lunch and snacks for fuel on this three-day, 20-mile excursion.
So up, up, up we went. Back on the Stair-master. Our first leg was 7.5 miles today with an optional 1.5 mile side trip up to Key Summit, including a nature walk around the summit. Except this Stair-master you couldn’t get off. We kept going. The upside is that we were treated with spectacular vistas and the weather couldn’t have been more ideal for hiking. Mother Nature was looking out for us again as we were lucky to have blue skies and sunshine with a slight breeze. A “cracker of a day,” according to our Aussie guide, Rachel.
We hiked through Silver Beech forests to the turn off to Key Summit, where we were able to leave our packs at the turn off before climbing the extra 35 minutes or so to the Summit for great views and a wetlands walk.
We headed back down to rejoin the track and unfortunately we also had to collect our packs and sling them back on for a short walk down to Lake Howden for lunch. We were saying how much easier this hike would be if we had sherpas to help carry our gear or just didn’t have it altogether.
In the afternoon, our track gradually ascended further up to Earland Falls. There, our trail looped around the base of the falls giving us extraordinary views of the falls from its base. We stopped for a quick break at the pools.
The track then traversed around the mountain side to the Orchard and through the Enchanted Forest where we were tiring and slowing to a crawl from exhaustion.
About an hour later, we climbed our final section of the track before a short, steep descent to Mackenzie Lodge, our home for the night.
Again, this lodge was stunning in a remarkable setting. We quickly ran a hand wash for our clothes, hung them in the drying room and headed to the lobby area to celebrate and toast finishing our first section with a glass of wine.
