New Zealand's Routeburn Track – Green Valleys, Misty Mountains, and Raging Waterfalls

Our driver took us and a couple of other trekkers from downtown Queenstown to the trailhead of the 32- kilometer Routeburn Track, one of New Zealand’s “Great Walks.” He was an informative fellow sharing his knowledge of the region’s geology and history starting with stories on how the Maori peoples settled in the area in the far distant past using part of the now Routeburm Track as their ancient highway into the mountains where they found food, timber, and greenstone for use in their villages down in the valleys.

Routeburn Falls Hut, 5.6 miles

The weather turned from the glorious sunshine of yesterday to low, rain filled clouds and colder weather today. As we ascended, off and on rain and very high winds marked the day. The beech tree forest and lush green valleys through which we walked stirred and groaned from the wind. Above the tree tops, wind driven veils of rain raced past. On occasion, peeks of sun filled the mountainsides and the valley below.

Many other trekkers, most of whom appeared to be day-trippers walking with a guide, filled the trail. While some of their numbers thinned out as we reached tree line and the Routeburn Falls hut, our stay for the evening, I learned that those on guided walks stayed at a nearby lodge that was palatial in comparison to our modest hut.

The hut had 50 or so bunks grouped into two unheated rooms. These were separated from the dining and cooking area by a breezeway where the toilets we situated.

As with many of our other hut and trekking experiences elsewhere in the world, this one too was filled with people from many nations speaking many different languages. The cacophony of sounds and the rich smells of cooking food filled the dining area. The heat from the cookstoves helped as well to warm us up after being chilled by the sweat of our previous exertions.

The ranger housed up here gave a lecture to our group at around sunset. We went to our bunk soon thereafter to retire. Sleep came easily.

MacKenzie Hut, 7.25 miles

Heavy rain and strong winds buffered the hut overnight. We learned this was due to the far southern arm of Cyclone Gita which was passing to our north. The racket helped drown out the snoring and other nocturnal noises by our hut mates.

Some other noises were from those in the 50 years and older crowd, of which there are a good number on this trail and in the hut. Given their shrinking bladders and enlarging prostates, there was a parade of them throughout the night making their way to the toilet block. Since I’m part of that cohort, I too joined the procession on a couple of occasions.   

We lingered at breakfast hoping the skies would clear and the rains would cease. But any sign of a let up from the deluge was not in the offing. We set off and were soon soaked as we made the climb to the Harris Saddle, the gap in the mountains that is the dividing line between Mt. Aspiring National Park and Fiordland National Park. The views are supposed to be spectacular.  In the clouds and murk though, all we could see were what were once rivulets and side streams that now were raging torrents of rapids.

At the Saddle, we joined other rain-soaked trekkers who were making use of the shelter located there. Our wet clothes and the cook stove some had brought and were now in use for lunch caused the shelter to steam up fairly quickly. The warmth was a bonus we did not anticipate as we wolfed down our own lunch.

The rain stopped and the clouds parted here and there, but only barely to give us a small hint of the scenery we were missing. Any glimpse of distant peaks, waterfalls, or glaciers was brief, allowing for a photo or two before being enveloped once again in a cloud bank. 

We descended to Lake MacKenzie and the hut located there where we spent the night. The resident warden gave a nice talk on how he and the conservation service have been controlling predators to keep them from decimating the remaining bird population, many of which are endangered and nearing extinction.

The predators include rats which came ashore with the boats that first arrived centuries ago, and stoats, a weasel-like animal introduced to control a rabbit infestation (which, by the way, were themselves introduced by a few Englishmen who wanted something to shoot at and, well, rabbits doing what they do, their populations exploded).

New Zealand’s birds evolved into flightless animals or animals with limited flying abilities since they didn’t have any native predator land mammals to worry about for hundreds of thousands of years. Well, that all changed when man introduced these predators into New Zealand’s environment. The stoats, in particular, soon turned their attention away from the fast-moving rabbits and attacked the birds, their nest, eggs and chicks, all of which were easy pickings.  

To help solve this problem, traps of various types have been set and are seen all along the trail. A hen’s egg is placed inside. The stoat or rat, very much desiring such a meal, enters the trap and, before reaching the egg, crosses a powerful spring loaded device. The predator is killed instantly. The program has been successful as seen in rising numbers of birds in the areas through which we were trekking.

The Divide, 7.5 Miles

A scheduled early afternoon bus transport required us to get up in the dark before all of the others so that we could get on the trail and arrive on time at the pickup point 7.5 miles away.

To keep from waking others in our bunkhouse, we gathered up our sleeping bags and gear and hauled it to the kitchen and dining house. We woke a few who were sleeping there. Apparently, there were a few very loud snorers in their bunkhouse that was separate from ours. So, to the dining hall they went to try and get some sleep. That is, until we walked in and made a commotion while sorting through our gear and getting packed.

Others soon joined us. The beams from all of our headlamps, needed since the solar powered overhead lights were only turned on for a few hours at dinner time, danced around the room creating a light show effect.

In the low light of dawn, we began our last day’s hike on the Routeburn. The deep moss and fern filled forest made for eerie surroundings making us believe a Jurrasic dinosaur or something would pop out from behind a tree and snatch us up.

This stretch of trail was pretty uneventful save for the fantastic Earland waterfall about halfway through. The falls carried a high volume of water and mist all ending at trailside where it was getting us damp and chilled.

After taking our shuttle to the town of Te Anau, we checked into our hostel and enjoyed a very hot and soapy shower and washed some of our trail clothes. Later, we visited the in-town grocery store for resupplies. It was packed with people. Hoping to be there briefly for we hadn’t had dinner yet and were very hungry, we instead had to take out time as we jostled our cart amongst the others to buy food for our next trek on the Kepler Track.

We’re hoping to God we finally have some decent weather.

A video of this trek and the one we did later on the Kepler Track is at the following link: