NZ Day 9 - Routeburn Track

Monday, 19 December 2022

The two main things I booked this holiday for were the Kepler Track and the Routeburn Track.  I made sure the Routeburn was one of the last things we did, just in case I trashed my knees or one of us got injured. Also it's hard to organise, as although the finish is only 34km from the start, it's over 300km by road - so we had to use a car relocation company to have our hire car magically teleport from the start of the hike to the car park at the end.

We left Te Anau at around 8, and drove out on the Milford Sound road again to the Divide Shelter (in a hurry this time), so that we could be started by 9.30. We had no idea how long this would take us - there are plenty of reports from people who have done this, but their times differ wildly up to 12 hours.     Doing it from the Divide meant that the first 2/3 of the trip was a slow climb all the way up to Harris Saddle, once there the last third was downhill. Our plan was to also go up Conical Hill from the saddle, if the weather allowed for it.  

The start was straight into the mossy green forest, then up and up and up: 

We went past a million waterfalls along the way :

 We stopped heaps for snacks and photos: 

Before the rain came, we got good views of mountain tops: 

Mackenzie Lake and Mackenzie Hut - where the hikers stay on their first (or last) night. All the huts along this track were fantastic. 

Looking back down on that hut as we climbed way above it: 

It started to get pretty wet as we got up to Harris Saddle. The clouds also lowered so we abandoned our conical hill plans. We stopped in the shelter for lunch then braved the weather again.

Jett with Conical Hill behind him:

Finally starting to head downhill: 

For the last 5k, the river we were following was amazingly blue: 

and then 7.5 hours after we started, we were at the Routeburn Shelter on the other side:

It was an amazing day out: