The Routeburn track

 After my last post I took a 9 hour bus to Queenstown where I spent a couple of days relaxing, walking up to the top of the gondola, watching magnificent sunsets and getting everything ready for my three day trek of the Routeburn.
The Routeburn track is one of New Zealand's great walks and it winds its way through the Mt. Aspiring and Fiordland national parks.

 In order to start the walk I took a bus from Queenstown to the Routeburn car park, then I was on my way. The first day was mostly through the trees with the bright turquoise river below and frequent swing bridges. When I reached clearings the views were spectacular as I was blessed with a very rare weather type for this region: sun. It was a nice simple walk which took much less time than expected meaning I had arrived at the hut by 1pm so had plenty of time to meet new people and bask in the sun. (To the right is the view from the Routeburn falls hut, where I spent my first night.) In the evening the hut warden set us a challenge of naming 20 languages on his flag; our team managed 19 but he gave us the chocolate bar anyway.

 Overnight the temperature plummeted from 27C to 6C. I set off around 7am as I had seen that rain was on its way in the afternoon. The day started with fantastic views down the valley and after a couple of hours I was enjoying myself so much I decided to do one of the side trips up Conical hill. This involved a steep scramble for about 30 minutes; unfortunately when I was about 50 meters from the top the cloud came down so my view from the top was a white out. For the next couple of hours I was walking along the side of a mountain and I'm sure there were incredible views beyond the cloud. I finally dropped down below the tree line into 'Fairy woods'; I can see why it got its name; you can just imagine nymphs and pixies flitting between the moss and lichen covered trees and boulder, just magical.

I made it to the Mackenzie hut at midday and was lucky that I was the third to arrive as it meant I got my own bed rather than having to be one in a long line.
We sat huddled around the fire feeling quite grateful for our early arrival as other trampers arrived soaked to the skin, by around 4pm it had even started to snow on the tops.
I had a nice relaxed afternoon and evening chatting to Peter (German), Kim and Kiara (Australian) and Bailey and Becka (American).

On the third and final day I set off in drizzle, meaning there was barely any view. I was having a lovely time walking through the trees taking photos of the many different types of moss and lichen and marvelling at the vast array of ferns. At one point I came to a particularly nice waterfall and was just admiring it when I noticed it had got slightly lighter. I turned around and was confronted by a jaw dropping view. The clouds had parted slightly and the snow capped mountains were poking through in the circle of blue, with the moon just above them. To add to the moment a few flurries of snow began to drift around me; this coupled with the sound of the gushing waterfall had me standing alone in the middle of the path with a huge grin on my face.
I continued with a spring in my step past numerous amazing waterfall, including the 174m Earland falls which was even more spectacular due to the rain. Around 10am I reached the Howden hut where I waited for the rain to die down for around 3 hours. Whilst waiting I was joined by Peter, Kim, Kiara, Becka and Bailey.
Once the rain had finally turned to a light drizzle we continued on to the end!
 After the 4 hour bus journey back to Queenstown I had a nice long shower then the 6 of us met up for celebratory pizzas. I had such an amazing time on the Routeburn and met some lovely people. I hope I can do more tramping both here and back in the UK.