Routeburn Track

At the start of the track

After arriving in Christchurch, we worked our way south and spent a few nights in and around Queenstown, the main tourist hub in the area (it rained half the days we were down there, about par for us!).  This area is so amazingly beautiful!  In many ways these mountainous areas remind us of Colorado.  The main difference here is the forests are full of beech trees instead of pine.  Pine trees are not indigenous to New Zealand, although they were brought here eventually and are now a crop.  Whenever we see a mountain covered with pine trees, upon closer look, we notice that they are all the same size and planted in very straight rows. 

One of many swinging bridges we crossed

Hiking in New Zealand is called “tramping” and trails are called “tracks.”  New Zealand has a well organized agency for their federal lands called the Department of Conservation, or the DOC.  The DOC has created these great multiday tracks with modern huts along the way for sleeping, so you only have to carry a daypack on the trail.  They are all over the country, but the most popular ones by far are in the southwest (which is the coldest, rainiest, and most mountainous part of the country).  Reservations for huts and campsites open months in advance and book fast for the summer.  The DOC’s website is a wealth of information as are their information centers.  Their trail guide management is genius:  they sell their trail pamphlets for $2 each, just enough to keep people from picking them up and discarding them (if they were free), but cheap enough that you can’t complain about the price when you really want one.  Nine of the tracks they’ve created are called Great Walks – these are considered the best of the best.  One of them, the Milford Track, is considered to be the best hike in the world.  It’s meant to be hiked in the rain (which is no problem since the area it’s in is very rainy).     

Before setting up camp

We were able to get one night in a campground on the Routeburn Track, one of the Great Walks, on a day that was forecasted to be “fine,” which I hoped meant “sunny and warm.”  The Routeburn is a 20 mile one-way track that normally takes three days to hike, staying in two huts along the way.   Our plan was to stay in the campground one night, hike to the high point on the trail for the view, then hike back down to our campsite, collect our gear, and hike out.  On the first day we drove out to the trailhead were hiking to our campsite by early afternoon.  The forest seemed unnaturally quiet – we heard very few birds.  Later we found out that the introduction of rats (brought by the Maori when they first came here), then stoats (a type of weasel brought over to kill introduced rabbits, typical story), and then possums (from Australia), has had a devastating effect on the bird population of New Zealand.  There were many stoat and rat traps along the trail as we hiked.  It was strange to not see any pine trees or even pine needles on the ground.  I have to admit though, that the beech trees are quite beautiful in their own way, and I liked walking on their tiny leaves that had fallen on the trail.  It didn’t take us long to reach our campsite where we set up our tent and had a quick meal.  In the evening the sandflies got so bad we retreated into our tent before the sun even set!  The sandfly is this annoying, persistent bloodsucking insect whose bite leaves an itchy welt, just like a mosquito – except there are lots of sandflies all over the place (they pretty much swarm you!).  They are really only a problem if you’re standing still – they can’t keep up with you if you’re walking, and a breeze keeps them away too.  After experiencing both, I would rather deal with the mosquito than the sandfly, any day! 

View from Conical Hill

We camped in this beautiful river valley with rising mountains on all sides and a waterfall nearby where the river came down the mountain.  We kept looking at the field, expecting to see elk or deer, and had to remind ourselves that New Zealand doesn’t have any large forest mammals.  This also means there is nothing to be afraid of while hiking – no bears, wolves, mountain lions, or snakes.  The British introduced red deer to the island, and subsequently the deer tore up the native forests.  Fairly recently the deer were hunted relentlessly by helicopter until they were all removed – now they are raised domestically for their meat.  As we’ve been driving around we’ve seen fields of red deer, enclosed by fences.   It’s always a strange sight to see; we’re used to seeing only wild deer, and not herds of them enclosed by fences.

Another spectacular view from Conical Hill

This far south the sun doesn’t set until after 10:30pm and it was still light at 11:00pm.  We crawled into our lightweight Aussie sleeping bags and basically froze all night long!  Both Daron (aka the Heat Machine) and I were sore in the morning from being curled up all night trying to keep warm.  We got an early start on the trail just so we could get unthaw our limbs and get warm from moving!   

The trail went up above treeline where it lingered a bit and went around a large alpine lake.  There was a day hut at the saddle, where a side trip to Conical Hill (our destination) started.  Conical Hill took us an hour to scramble up, but it was well worth it!  We had a 360 degree view at the top and could see the Tasman Sea in the distance.  We had a beautiful blue sky day with no wind – it couldn’t get better than this!  We lingered at the top, eventually making our way down the trail back to where we left our tent.  We broke down the tent, repacked our backpacks, and hiked to our car, where we munched on all the nibblies we left in the trunk.  

Mission accomplished!