Family blog: Routeburn Track Hike

A second blog post from our recent trip to New Zealand.

This account picks up on Sunday Jan 26, just after we left the group tour with New Zealand Trails, and struck out on our own to hike the Routeburn Track (one of New Zealand's "Great Walks"). I should add that Routeburn is pronounced not "Rowtburn" but "Rootburn" (that's the way the Kiwis say it).

Our guides Dan and Kristy dropped us off with bags at a campground on the edge of town, where we (eventually) located the offices of an outfit called Track-Net, which runs bus services that bring you to the trailheads for the great walks.

We handed off our duffel bags (minus hiking kit) to the Track-Net folks, to be sent on to Queenstown, then made our way over to the D.O.C. center to check in again (the person we had talked with previously had insisted that we come in and do ask about the weather before getting on the bus). We were not really sure what the fuss was about (yada yada, check the weather, sure, whatever) but we did what they asked (more about this later).

We had to cool our heels for a while, maybe 50 minutes at the D.O.C. center waiting for the bus. It did eventually turn up, driven by "Terry", a big grizzled and weather-beaten Kiwi guy.

Terry was a very careful driver (I chatted with him for a bit; he said he'd been driving the route for 16 years, yikes). Sizeable group of other hikers on the bus, a fair number of them getting ready to start the Milford Track, which starts with a water taxi ride from Te Anau Downs. The rest of the gang was bound for The Divide (start of the Routeburn) along with us. We arrived around 11:05am; we had a bit of a wait for the toilet, and then it was onto the trail.

This area of New Zealand is classified as "temperate rain forest", which is kind of a bland/generic term, but it's quite cool to take in when you are hiking through it. Moss and lichen covering everything, trees looking very happy, every centimeter of surface is wet and dripping with moisture.

We had watched a huge group pile into the trail ahead of us, so there was a bit of traffic as we made our way along. Amy set off at a good pace (I brought up the rear), and it was not long before she had reeled in pretty much the entire group and then passed them as they stopped to take breaks. We made it to the Key Summit cutoff in good time, maybe 35 mins, and then began the next section to the Lake Howden hut.

View from the trail:

Lake Howden:

Lake Howden hut:

Mushrooms growing along the trail:

Slogging it:

Trees blown down along the trail:

Not too many other people on this part of the trail, which was nice. Not raining, but still very wet and a fair amount of cloud cover. The Lake Howden Hut looked nice, not very large, bit cozy looking, and with a bunch of people hanging around having just arrived.

After Lake Howden the trail was a bit up-and-downy and pretty rocky (a good deal of clambering), but we made good progress, and didn't see very many other hikers. On the plus side, we had some really nice bird sightings on this section of the trail, including a small group of three or four rifleman birds all chattering and squabbling like a group of teenagers in the back seat of a car. We also got a good view of a couple of parrots, which I am pretty sure were kakariki, and I saw another big bird that I'm fairly certain was a wood pigeon (we had seen one before near Lochmara).

We had a short break for lunch, then pushed on. Near the end of the trail there is an interesting site called "The Orchard", which is an open meadow area that has scrubby trees in it that look almost planted (they are fairly evenly spaced).

On the trail:

Karariki (we think):

View across the Hollyford river valley:

Here you can actually see all the way down the river valley to the ocean. This one glimpse was about all we got before it clouded up again.

More vegetation:

We finally rolled in around 3:30 or so -- first coming into view was the "posh" hut run by Ultimate Trails (it was set back a bit, not too obtrusive), and next up in a hundred meters or so the real D.O.C. hut (closer to the lake, with nice views). The bunk room in the hut is pretty utilitarian; we picked bunks in a single long line of beds along one wall (the sort of setup that really allows you to get to know your fellow sleepers well!).

Approaching Lake McKenzie, the "posh" hut:

Lake McKenzie itself and the hut:

The water taps at the hut all have scary-looking signs saying "Untreated water! Boil before drinking!", which was a bit of a surprise (if I had known I would have brought along one of our many water filters). A fair number of the other hikers were ignoring the signs and just drinking the water straight, but we decided we would play it safe (on my part having had giardia once already, I don't have any desire to repeat the experience).

The lake turned out to be very swimmable -- I walked down and had an excellent dip; fair number of other folks swimming as well. No soap/shampoo allowed however.

We had an early dinner, freeze dried stuff (a packet billed as Pad Thai, plus some green beans) followed up by some crackers and a bit of fruit. The shared dining area was pretty lively by the time we finished, lots of different languages being spoken (I heard French, German, Hebrew, and Korean among others).

At 7:30 the Lake McKenzie hut warden (a fellow named Evan Smith) arrived on the scene and asked folks to check in, which we did. He then gave a short announcement about the weather (cloudy with some small amount of rain predicted) and of course the obligatory safety talk, mostly focused on fire exits, fire extinguishers and so on. He talked a bit about route itself, which is apparently unique in that it crosses over from one national park (Fiordland N.P.) to another (Mount Aspiring N.P.) as part of the trail that runs from Lake McKenzie to Routeburn Falls. He also joked a bit about being a "junior" hut warden, having spent only 17 years on the job.

After that he told us that he would be talking at length about his particular passion, birds, and gave us a disclaimer ("If you are not interested you can feel free to wander off or fall asleep, and I won't be offended, but I will keep talking as long as there are still a few people not visibly sleeping"). He then launched into his spiel, which was all about New Zealand birds and the efforts underway to help preserve them.

The ranger talked about how New Zealand was unique in having no native mammal species at all except for a couple of bats, and the correspondingly more important role that bird life played in the ecosystem. He went through all of the interesting birds of New Zealand (including the bigger extinct species like the Moa and Haas Eagle), and then described the nasty effects that imported/invasive species have had on them, especially on the ground-dwelling birds like the kiwi. He enumerated each of the problem pests, starting with the rat (which escaped off of the sailing boats and into the wild very early on, at the first instant the European ships docked), then the Australian possum, and finally (as a means to control rabbits) the weasels, ferrets, and stoats. The stoat he covered in excruciating detail, including how they hunt, how they reproduce, and just about everything else (he started this part of the talk by holding up a wooden trap-box with an allegedly live stoat that he had captured earlier that morning, out of which he pulled a stuffed animal instead). By the time he had finished with stoats, in our minds they were maybe just one or two steps above the nasty creature in the movie "Alien" -- really vicious, voracious predators.

He talked about the local efforts to control the predator/pest population, which began haltingly with just a couple of trap boxes that he put together on his own initiative, and which have since been expanded to cover a much larger territory, including strings of traps running all along the Routeburn (every 150 meters), with lines extending perpendicularly from the trail. The traps are all checked/emptied monthly, and it is now a bigger job than he can handle personally.

He was very eloquent; it was clear that he is a true believer, in every sense of the word. Also clear that his work and advocacy have become a good bit more than just his "pet project" (the term he used). By the time he was done (close to an hour) I think only a few people had wandered off.

I went over to chat briefly with the warden after the talk; when I arrived at his cabin (set a bit apart from the main bunkroom), he was busy doing an emergency boot repair operation, wrapping liberal quantities of duct tape around the toes of a woman's hiking boots, which were trying hard to disintegrate. I asked if he did this often and he said that it used to be about once a week, but that it was now getting closer to once a day. When the boot lady departed I started to ask him a question about his talk, but before I had gotten more than a few words in, another hiker came up (very sunburned looking) and said that his companion was dehydrated and had been throwing up ... the ranger lept up to deal with that situation, and I decided to sneak off at that point (he obviously had much more important things to do than talk with me).

We were pretty tired from the hiking, so we got our gear settled and headed off to bed shortly after that.

The quality of sleep you get in these sort of shared bunkrooms is not especially great. Having spent a fair number of nights in Appalachian Mountain Club huts in the White Mountains, we knew what to expect, and this was no exception, lots of bumping around, comings and goings, and of course plenty of snoring. The culprits are the older guys (myself included), and we had a decent supply of them in this bunkroom. As with the AMC huts there is inevitably a moment where you wake up in the middle of the night to hear two (or more) competing snores, each with a slightly different tempo and pitch (very entertaining, but also exceptionally hard to tune out). Still, it helps to have been hiking all day, so we did get some good sleep albeit in chunks.

Monday, day 2:

Breakfast was fine; we had our coffee and ate some granola with a couple of the apples that we'd packed in. It wasn't long before we were ready to go again, so we struck out around 7:30 or so for along the trail to the north. Lake McKenzie is in a sort of bowl, and the trail heads up the north side of the bowl in a series of switchbacks and heads around a shoulder back onto the mountainside that runs north along the Hollyford river valley.

The climb was nice -- there was cloud cover but it was quite variable and intermittent, so you would be presented with glimpses of views as you hiked along, a sort of "dance of the seven veils" effect. Every now and then a hole would open in the clouds at just the right point and a beam of sun would stab down, wander the hillside for a bit, and then wink out -- a cool effect (beautiful, bit hard to describe and almost impossible to photograph).

Looking down on Lake McKenzie from the trail:

About 25 minutes into the hike we came around a bend and encountered a boulder with a couple of metal plates set into it as markers -- one was for two kids (13 year olds) who had died at that spot in 1963, and then another person (presumably an adult) who had died in 2016. Eek, very sobering, and somewhat astonishing given how close we were at that point to the hut. One must always remember the old saying, "Mountains make their own weather" (very bland, but not something to be taken lightly).

At the one hour mark we had made it up around the shoulder and back onto mountainside heading north, and when the trail leveled off we had a close encounter with a kea (alpine parrot). This particular bird announced his presence with a loud squawk and then swooped in to land on a rock about five or ten yards away. We got a good look at the red patch under his wings while he was landing; very striking.

Second hour of the hike was windy and foggy, with a couple of brief glimpses through holes in the clouds at the mountains across the river valley. At some point towards the third hour it began to rain, so we put on jackets and then as it came down harder we added rain paints (definitely glad to have them along). This section of the trail is very exposed to the weather (as we learned).

Traps:

Geared up for rain:

Things cleared a bit just before the Harris saddle, which was a relief. Lunch at the shelter at the top of the saddle, which turned out to be an excellent rest and snack spot. A couple of hikers had left their packs there, most likely so that they could make the side trek up to Conical Peak (we decided not to take that detour since the visibility was not all that great).

The views from the saddle to the east were fantastic. Lake Harris (just below the saddle) is among the most beautiful and pristine mountain lakes I have ever seen -- it was really extraordinarily lovely. I took many photos, but it is hard to capture such a thing in a cell phone image. The view to the north of Mount Xenicos was also spectacular. On the descent down into the valley we started to see hikers again (for most of the stretch up to the saddle we had only seen a couple of people).

The shelter:

Lake Harris:

The trail, clinging to the side of the mountain:

Lake Harris below, Humboldt range way off to the east:

Mount Xenicos:

View to the east from the saddle:

Lots of steps on the trail at this point:

The hike down took another two hours or so; we eventually rolled into the Routeburn Falls hit at around 12:20, so just about a five hour hike. As usual we bypassed the "posh" hut (which looked mostly empty, judging from glimpses into the the windows as we walked past) and went on to the DOC hut, which was quite nice (a bit bigger and more recently built than the Lake McKenzie one, with a nicer bunk room and more space to spread out).

More trail photos:

View to the east of Routeburn valley:

Approaching the hut:

The Routeburn Falls itself:

The "usual" warnings on the trail:

A "swimming" spot:

Having arrived so early at the hut, we had quite a lot of time to pass in the afternoon, and we were both completely out of reading material, ironically. I spend time cartooning and writing in my journal, and later on went for a swim. The swimming opportunities here were a bit trickier-- you have to climb down a very rocky path to the river, and then once there it is kind of hard to do any real swimming (more like dunking yourself in the pools, trying to avoid being swept away by the current). Still, it was very refreshing.

For dinner we had a very nice big pot of pasta with pesto -- messy to clean up but delicious, and then made a second course with a two-person packet of chana masala. I felt a little deprived while consuming that part since there was a group of hikers at the next table drinking wine (from a sort of plastic satchel -- special for hiking?) and playing interesting-sounding card games. "First World Problem", as they say.

After dinner we gathered for the lecture from the ranger; this person was a bit more wide-ranging in his commentary but still interesting -- he talked about the geology of the region (in addition to birds) and about some of the differences between north and south island.

We also discovered from an overheard conversation that there was an earlier bus the next day (10am) that we might be able to take (Amy had reserved us on the 1:45 bus). After talking it over with the ranger we decided we would get up early and try to make the earlier time-slot.

Journaling:

Tuesday, day 3:

Amy woke me up around 5:50am and we did our best to extract our belongings quietly from the bunkroom and into the kitchen area, where we made a quick breakfast (fruit and coffee) and repacked/reorganized. There was one other Australian woman who we'd met and enjoyed talking with back in the Lake McKenzie hut who was following our same itinerary -- she had also decided to try to make the early bus, so the three of us made our arrangements and got ready to go. Predictably there was a last minute snafu where I could not find my wallet (of course I discovered later on that I had put it into one of the pockets in my backpack, then somehow forgot to check that particular pocket, duh).

Making the early start was a good call -- there was a lot of bird activity on the trail, it was cooler, fewer people, and the views were just as good. We stopped briefly at the Routeburn Flats hut (just a half hour down the trail) and then continued on. Lovely views to the east of the Humbolt range, and of the Routeburn river itself, which is large and swift-flowing. We made it down to the end of the trail in good time, maybe about two and a half hours.

Photos from the trail:

The usual suspension bridges along the way:

Sunrise:

Looking east:

The Routeburn Flats hut:

Bird life along the way: this was a particularly active and sociable robin:

The river, very beautiful:

Looking east across the river to the Humboldt range:

Beech leaves:

Hey, we are getting close...

Made it!

The bus arrived right on time, this one "Info Trac" instead of "Track Net" (kind of odd names for bus lines, but whatever). The driver was quite happy to let us take the earlier bus, which was empty other than the three late additions. The drive was quite nice, fantastic views all around, especially the sections near Glenorchy and just to the south (we saw huge numbers of tour buses with folks who had driven up just in order to park there and take in the views).

In Queenstown we extracted our packs from the bus trailer (all of them were now very liberally coated with rock dust) and made our way up the hill to the hotel to dump them. We were staying at the Melbourne Lodge -- nice little place, but boy is there a steep walk to get up to it!

Yay, coffee:

View from the hotel:

Seen on the street (couldn't resist a photo):

Lunch in Queenstown after that, we picked an east asian / malaysian place and ordered mostly vegetables. Yum. After that we ransomed our other bags (from the Track Net office) and made another hike up the steep hill to the hotel.

Dinner at "Rata", one of the nicer and pricier restaurants in town. Very nice meal-- good wines, nice salads, and I had a superb piece of venison. The dining area ambience was more than a bit weird I have to say. About two thirds of the tables were taken up by Asian tourists who were nearly glued to their phones for the entire meal (it was kind of spooky, actually, kind of a "dinner with the pod people" ambience). I guess the idea of having a conversation with your table-mates is too old fashioned these days.

Very nice sleep that evening, it was good to be in a soft bed and a quiet room again...

Postscript:

We heard from one of the folks that did the group tour with us that the following week they had an enormous rain storm in the Fiordland area -- Milford sound received about a meter of rain (yes, three feet) and that large numbers of roads had been washed out. Link with details here.

One of the huts we had hiked past (Lake Howden) had been pretty much wiped out (hit by a landslide and falling trees), and that the Routeburn track itself had been declared closed for the season. Yikes... I think at that point we began to understand why so much focus on the weather (both at the D.O.C. center before the trek and at the huts along the way).

Here's a photo the main road that we drove along to get to Milford Lodge-- don't think there are going to be a lot of tour buses along here any time soon...