New Zealand

The Routeburn Track – a cold but terrific start for NZ

What do people expect from NZ? What did I expect? Loneliness, a beautiful, natural and untouched setting? What did I get? Well kinda exactly that, but I was still truly fascinated by it. And then there’s so much more, too, like the kindness of the locals, the overpriced everything, the false promises of extreme sport experiences and all their young followers, the spare wildlife, etc etc.

DSC00306The Routeburn Track sums up the best of the Fiordland and therefore the best of my initial expectations. It’s a 45km hiking track usually done in three days and ranging from 400m to 1300m in altitude. It starts off in an overly green beech, fern and moss forest, following a river in western direction until reaching wide flats shimmering yellow with its wind stroked grass – the first camp site. Then the track climbs up and up along waterfalls and green highlands until it reaches a saddle at 1100m. From there it continues on the back of a mountain range above the tree line and with wonderful views of the snow covered Fiordland mountains in the west. The track then eventually turns east and descends towards the second camp site, through yet another mystically moss-covered forest. The last part continues in the forest near the tree limit, revealing numerous waterfalls surpassed by little wooden bridges, loosing slowly on altitude and finally reaching the end of the track at the road to Milford Sound.

The track isn’t very hard overall. It’s rather short, especially if completed over three days, the path is well established and the climbs won’t leave you out of breath, yet revealing absolutely stunning, alpine views, that you won’t forget so soon!

DSC_0043

I almost feel sorry about these overly positive words. Yet there’s something I haven’t mentioned yet: it was freakin’ cold! During the day it was alright, given that we had good boots and wind and water proof jackets and trousers. Those were actually necessary since we approached the saddle under heavy snowfall. During the nights the temperatures on slightly lower altitude reached 3 degree Celsius and our sleeping bags were not at all prepared for this. My ultra light one has an “extreme condition” rating of -4 degrees but even with an extra silk liner and 4 layers of clothes I was still shivering in our tent. The solution was refilling or plastic water bottles with hot water every 2 hours and keeping them close to the body. In any case, that was not the typical summer weather I expected from New Zealand, not even at 700m altitude in the south island. That said the snow before the saddle allowed a very mystical setting that everybody seemed to enjoy.

DSC00124

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *