Friday, March 20th, Dan, Lexie and I took off for Queenstown ready to hike the world famous Routeburn track. The Routeburn track was named one of the top eleven trails in the world by the National Geographic Adventure Magazine in May 2005 and is one of NZ's 9 Great Walks. We left Dunedin a little after noon Friday because Lexie and Dan had a stats class in the morning.
Queenstown is about 3.5 hours from Dunedin unless you hit road blocks like this one in which case it takes a little longer.
We had to wait while this helicopter dumped water to clean the road of debris from some rock blasting. I guess they were blasting the rock because it was in danger of falling onto the road.
We picked up our hut tickets (you need to book huts on the Routeburn since it's very popular) in Queenstown and headed out to the start of the trail which is past Glenorchy. It eventually became a gravel road with some flooded areas.
It was taking forever to get there, and we still had to hike to the Routeburn Falls hut. Eventually we realized we had missed a significant turn and had to backtrack about an hour to get to the start of the Routeburn track. At this point there was a lot of angry/carsick people in the Subaru.
Finally, we get to the start of the track just after 7pm Friday night. The sign says it'll take us anywhere from 2.5-4 hours to get to the Routeburn Falls hut. We'll see about that.
Right away we get to cross a swing bridge over a perfectly clear green-blue river. It is one of many swing bridges we crossed that night but definitely the most visible.
We get the whole trail to ourselves which was nice. And we make great time - just over 2 hours to get to our hut. Unfortunately, the last hour is basically in the dark with only headlamps to light the way. We seemed to have walked one of the steepest parts of the track at record speed in the dark. Seeing the lights of the hut as we approached was such a great feeling. Of course, finding the three empty bunks in the dark bunkroom while all the other trampers were sound asleep wasn't as much fun. What an adventurous start to our weekend.
Queenstown is about 3.5 hours from Dunedin unless you hit road blocks like this one in which case it takes a little longer.
We had to wait while this helicopter dumped water to clean the road of debris from some rock blasting. I guess they were blasting the rock because it was in danger of falling onto the road.
We picked up our hut tickets (you need to book huts on the Routeburn since it's very popular) in Queenstown and headed out to the start of the trail which is past Glenorchy. It eventually became a gravel road with some flooded areas.
It was taking forever to get there, and we still had to hike to the Routeburn Falls hut. Eventually we realized we had missed a significant turn and had to backtrack about an hour to get to the start of the Routeburn track. At this point there was a lot of angry/carsick people in the Subaru.
Finally, we get to the start of the track just after 7pm Friday night. The sign says it'll take us anywhere from 2.5-4 hours to get to the Routeburn Falls hut. We'll see about that.
Right away we get to cross a swing bridge over a perfectly clear green-blue river. It is one of many swing bridges we crossed that night but definitely the most visible.
We get the whole trail to ourselves which was nice. And we make great time - just over 2 hours to get to our hut. Unfortunately, the last hour is basically in the dark with only headlamps to light the way. We seemed to have walked one of the steepest parts of the track at record speed in the dark. Seeing the lights of the hut as we approached was such a great feeling. Of course, finding the three empty bunks in the dark bunkroom while all the other trampers were sound asleep wasn't as much fun. What an adventurous start to our weekend. 
2 comments:
wait...who was carsick?? :)
I DO like that pink shirt---hmmm...onto the sierra website...
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