Routeburn Track

Picking up where the Milford track ended:

The bus picked us up and we got the luxury of a horse powered engine driving us for ~approximately 30 minutes.  Where a melt down happen.  I will save that funny story for later.

Day 4 - 18 kilometers/11 miles completed from the Milford with minimal elevation gain or loss & 3.4 kilometers/2 miles and 150 meters/500 feet of elevation gain from the Routeburn.

After convincing ourselves that we wanted to start another hike, we sintched up our laces and slowly made our way up to Lake Howden hut.  The view of the lake was quite nice but we were rushed into the hut talk, where we learned about the early settlers of Martin's Bay.  Although I was still trying to control the melt down so it was not the most enjoyable hut talk.  I crashed that night and I am pretty sure even though I am not a loud snorer that I was probably in the loud category that night.  

Start of the Routeburn hike from Divide Point - Clouds were moving in quickly

View from Lake Howden hut

Day 5 -  12.4 miles/20 kilometers with 2100 feet/700 meters elevation gain and 1150 feet/350 elevation loss.

This was the last long day.  We struggled out of our bunks, put on our packs, and started out.  The section from Howden to Lake MacKenzie huts was my least favorite.  The trail was extremely rocky, kept going up and down (a pet peeze of mine), and without views.  The rocks were making our already achy feet ache worse.  We made it to Lake MacKenzie where we made lunch, massaged our feet and set off over the pass.  The hike out of the pass was steep but again I didn't mind the uphill sections.  Clouds had rolled in and we had light rain but could still see the mountains across the way from us.  We slowly made our way across the mountains.  Our goal this day was not time.  We were just focused on making it to the hut at a pace we could maintain.  We laughed because while we hiked along the ridge it felt like a scene from Lord of the Ring.  We made our way through the final up hill to the shelter where we met a guy who worked on the reducing the stouts numbers.  We were waiting out the rain but it was more persistent than us so after eating some dinner, we headed out again to hike our final miles to the hut.  We made it after the ranger talk which neither of us were sad about since we didn't have any desire to sit still through an entire talk while waiting to eat again.  Sleep again was not great that night.

Looking down on Lake MacKenzie Hut

Cloudy Routeburn views

Panorama View point from the Routeburn track

Slowly making our way along the ridge

Looking back at where we came from

Watching the views come and go with the quick moving fog

Day 6 - 5.5 miles/8.8 kilometers with 1640 feet/500 meters of elevation loss.

We were both excited that today was going to be our last day.  Our feet were sore, the boots and pack were really uncomfortable, and we wanted some warm non freeze dried food.  We did make it back down to the valley although the last 30 minutes dragged on for what seemed like an eternity.  We ate the last of our rations, as we sat and waited for the bus to come get us.  All in all it was amazing but I would never recommend doing the tracks one right after the other.  

Looking down on MacKenzie flat hut

Quick break at the river for some dried fruit

Making our way along the river

We made it!  Over 50 miles in 5.5 days!

Milford Sound Track

Top of MacKinnon Pass from the Milford Track

So out of the three tracks I looked into (Milford, Routeburn, and Kepler tracks), the Milford was definitely the most popular of the three.  The cool thing about this track was that most everyone starts from Te Anau Downs and hikes through to the Milford track so it was kind of like hiking in a cohort.  You spent 4 days and 3 nights hiking with everyone.  Most of the guests were from New Zealand and Australia but we also had a group from South Korea, United States, Czech Republic, Spain, and Israel.  I will say the Koreans know how to cook camp food.  While the rest of us were eating our rehydrated food, they pulled out potatoes, meat, and beer and cooked up a storm every night.  

As I stated the Milford track, starts at Te Anau Downs where you take a boat across the lake to start the hike.  Our captain, turned to me at one point and said he hated kayakers.  We briefly stopped to look at the cross on the shore where McKinnon was thought to have been killed in an sailing accident on Lake Te Anau.  There is also a conspiracy theory that he faked his own death to flee to Madagascar to avoid dealing with a woman he supposedly got pregnant in town.  He was rumored to have left Scotland for New Zealand for the same reason, according to our captain. 

We disembarked the boat, and began our hike.  

Day 1 - 5 kilometers/3 miles and very little elevation gain.  

Following along the peaceful river

Yeah, this was an easy day to say the least.  It barely even counted as a hiking day compared to the following days.  There was brilliant sun and I was having fun spotting all the different types of ferns.  (Stay tuned for a blog posts of just fern photos).  We took the last boat out so we were definitely some of the last to arrive at Clinton hut, so we ended up with top bunks.  At dinner we were treated to a talk from ranger Ross, who was wearing his fabulous shorts.  He explained that he drank the water from the streams and that he was 5'4 when he arrived and now was 6'5''.  The mood was light hearted and excitement could be felt around the mess hall.  Falling asleep was a different story.  I think that first night alone there were 10 snorers in our area so sleep did not come easy.

Day 2 - 16.5 kilometers/10.25 miles and ~350 meters/950 feet of elevation gain.

Day two started out well.  The sun was out and we were on our way.  I was getting over my disappointment after misidentifying a weka for a kiwi.  We slowly made our way up the valley and did the side turn offs to hidden lake.  Even though it was 10 miles, the day went by fast and so did the miles.  When we reached the turn off for guided hikers, and we saw that we had another 1.5 hours left to reach Mintaro hut, I will admit the ease of the day was starting to wear off.  The last half an hour was pretty brutal.  The legs were tired and we were both ready to get the packs off our backs.  We did finally reach Mintaro hut.  We learned we had to tie our boots together and hang them from the pegs to keep the keas from stealing them and pulling out the leather.  Sand flies were starting to get to us at this point as well.  We were in a smaller room with 9 other hikers and sleep did not come easy with 3 snorers in the room.  My alter-cranky self emerged the next morning with only a few hours of sleep.

Slowly making our way up the meadow - enjoying all the bird songs

Day 3 - 14 kilometers/8.7 miles and ~400 meters/1300 feet of elevation gain and ~750 meters/2400 feet of elevation loss.

This day was brutal but probably not for the reason you think.  Actually the elevation gain was the easy part.  We had trained for this and we were hiking on fresh legs.  We were also really fortunate because again we had brilliant sunshine and we could see in all directions.  The view from the top was beautiful and we celebrated with a square of chocolate.  

Flowers that required their photo taken.  It was also a really good excuse for a few second break while climbing up to the top of the p

Panorama from the pass

Taken from the bathroom at the top of the pass.  That is the valley we had come up the previous day

After we had taken all of our photos, we began the hard part.  The brutal decent down the other side.  To make things worse the sand flies were especially bad.  They bit my face, neck, hands, ears, and any other amount of skin left open for attack.  The annoying thing about them, is that sometimes just smacking them wouldn't kill them.  It seemed to stun them for a second or two and then they were back on the offensive again.  We finally did make it to the Quintin shelter attached to the guided walkers hut and massaged life back into our feet.  We skipped going out to Sutherland falls, since we were told we would get a view of it from the trail and we were continuing straight to the Routeburn track the next day without a break.  We did make it to Dumpling hut and about fell (well climbed into our top bunks).  I was so tired this night that I didn't even care if I snored.  Unfortunately since many people were nervous about making the boat in the morning, many in our room got up at 5:00am.  

We followed the river back down to the valley.  It was this steep on the way down.

Sutherland falls

Day 4 - 18 kilometers/11 miles to complete the Milford and 5 kilometers/3 miles to start the Routeburn - minimal elevation gain or loss from the Milford track.

This was our last day on the Milford track.  We had been blessed with amazing weather the entire time on the Milford track.  Clouds were slowly moving in so the sun was a little less intense.  We began our hike out at 8:00am.  The miles did not click by as they had before and seemed to drag on.  I'm not sure if it was because we had to make it to the dock by a certain time to catch our boat, we wanted off the trail, or we were just tired, but the miles did drag on.  Top it all off, I got a blister but second skin saved the day.  We did get to see several waterfalls.  We also were able to catch the 3:00 o'clock boat instead of our scheduled 4:00 o'clock boat.  We did sit at the dock and enjoy our last square of chocolate dipping our feet into the Milford Sound, until the sand flies forced us to retreat to the shelter.  We were happy about our accomplishment but a little apprehensive because we still had to complete the Routeburn in the next 2 days.  Also what saved us, was the fact we got some hot food while waiting for our bus at the Milford Sound boat terminal.  I'm not even entirely sure what we ate, except I remember a sandwich and juice.  The only thing I cared about was that it was not freeze dried food.  All two quickly we were whisked off to start the Routeburn track.  A little less excited than the start of the Milford track.

Hiking out of the valley

Waterfall along the way

We made it to Milford Sound!

We did it.  We hiked 33.5 miles!  Onto the Routeburn

Absence - well I was off the grid in New Zealand

Sorry for my absence from writing but I have a pretty good reason.  I was off the grid hiking in New Zealand.  I highly recommend getting off the grid every now and then.  Whether it be for a run or for a long backpacking trip.  There's something very freeing about being unavailable.  

To start we wanted to go to New Zealand last year but I didn't know you had to book the huts a year in advance.  So we post pone our trip for a year and I checked every Friday for several months to see when the bookings would become available.  Once the date was posted that they would become available, I put a meeting on my calendar and quickly planned out when we were aiming to take the hikes.  The day came and I successfully booked huts for hikes 9 months into the future and cashed in airline miles for two tickets to New Zealand.  Life has a funny way of taking your plans and flipping them upside down.  I found out a few months later that my position was ending with the grant I was working on just a few weeks before we were slatted to head out.  I went into a bit of a panic mode of should we still go even though I was going to be out of work.  We decided that yes we were still going because well we had already paid for everything and couldn't get refunds for everything.  I can honestly say that I am glad we went.  Taking the time away is something that I do not regret.  I also found out that if organizations want you, they will understand and work with you on interview times and schedules.  While I still do not have a job, I am hopeful.

So here is a little photo teaser about some up coming blog posts about New Zealand:

Hiking through a set of Lord of the Rings?

Also here are some planned blog posts for the up coming weeks.

- Review of the Milford Track

- Review of the Routeburn Track

- Planning, packing, and preparing for trekking in New Zealand

- South Island activities

- Restaurants and food to try in New Zealand

- Blog just with photos of the many ferns I spotted

- Souvenirs

- Maybe a couple of recipe reviews from my new dessert cookbook on New Zealand desserts

- And a funny story involving hiking, meltdown, and early pioneers.