Routeburn Track

Day 1

The beginning!

Day 2

View from thut hut, early morning

Day 3

The end!

Our legs were hurting after The Kepler, we relaxed for three days at our hostel in Te Anau and took full advantage of their great video collection! We needed that even though The Routeburn Track would be the shortest of the lot.

We realised now that we didn't need our mats, gas or stove, making our packs that little bit lighter. So, David (sorry..He-Man!) took some of Nic's stuff meaning she got to carry a day pack and save her knees. We caught a bus right to the other side of the track - four hours later we were at the beginning, waterproofed up and ready to pump our legs!

The Routeburn is the only link between two valleys and the next three days were spent going from one national park to the other. The views were fantastic! We got up to around 1500m and there was snow and ice on almost all of the surrounding peaks and occasionally ours - making for hard walking conditions on some genuinely challenging terrain. We could see the sea amongst the snow capped mountains and were threatened by rain and snow (they have around 7m of rain in this area annually!). There was a good combination of alpine and woodland walking and the second day was especially rewarding walking alongside gigantic mountains - whose heads were constantly covered by cloud.

We were glad about getting the long bus journey out of the way at the start of our walk, meaning we had a short 1hr trip back to the hostel. A perfect walk with fantastic valley walking, alpine traversing and mysterious woodland. A descent 35km (22mile) tramp!