Day Eleven - Routeburn Track, Part One

day_eleven
Originally uploaded by bpelley.

Today we left Queenstown early in the morning to ride to the head of the Routeburn Track, a three day hike through Fiordland National Park in the southwestern part of the south island. Althought it was foggy and rainy when we left Queenstown, it cleared up about a half an hour after starting the hike. We spent the late morning hiking through a dense forest. We stopped for lunch by the Routeburn river and then hiked to our first overnight stop in the afternoon. The scenery was breathtaking and the trail was very well maintained. Althought steep at times, we made it in good time and managed to claim some of the first bunks in the Routeburn Falls hut (it has 48 bunks total). These huts need to be booked well in advance (we booked ours in September) since the route is very popular and there is no other legal place to stay or camp on the track. The huts are popular for good reason. Despite being in the middle of the wilderness, the huts have padded bunks, flush toilets, running (potable) water and gas stoves. Not to mention the view! The first hut was perched on a cliff overlooking a huge valley with mountains all around. There was a beautiful waterfall behind the hut which provided a good soundtrack for the evening. It was very cool to open up the visitors log and see the name of our friend Sarah Holliday who had stayed in the hut just a week earlier! She even left us a note. We cooked ourselves a good meal, played some cribbage (Patrick won), and tucked ourselves in for the night. For more pictures from Day Eleven, click here.