The Routeburn Track is a quite famous track in New Zealand. Its
32 kms long, with huts along the way for the multi-day trampers. It wasn't on
our original agenda, but when we found ourselves with the best part of an otherwise
unscheduled day, and still had Lucy to get us to the trailhead, we headed
off. With luck, we'd get a couple of hours tramping on the famous Routeburn.
Lucy was our little rental Hyundia Getz. She was best described as a peanut, but capable and fun to drive. Speaking of driving, we had become quite comfortable driving on the left side of
the road. Now the comfort level driving on the left side brought thoughts of
the difficulty I was going to have when we get home, and the need to transition
back to the right side.
While heading out to Routeburn, the shore of the northern
arm of Lake Wakatipu was very scenic. Previously, we had travelled along the
southern arm, when going to and from Doubtful Sound, but the scenery along the
northern arm was even more dramatic.
The Routeburn was again in what they call a temperate
rainforest, so the vegetation was lush. Moss was growing heavily on both living and dead
trees alike, along with the rocks, cliffs, and anywhere else the sun didn't
reach with intensity.
The trail was well formed with good drainage, meaning there
were almost no washouts from heavy rains. New Zealand's efforts to build
quality trails for kilometers and kilometers through the bush, up and down
mountains, was quite incredible. To get across rivers and streams, they had
impressive suspension bridges. They are serious about tramping here in New
Zealand.
When we had tramped all that we had time for, we stopped for
lunch. There was a river flowing down the mountain side, and a perfect place to
relax, have lunch, and reflect.
While in New Zealand over the past 2 weeks, we had seen and done so much. The Routeburn Track was representative of
our trip overall. It and New Zealand were wonderful. We had seen enough
to appreciate what they were all about, but there is so much more yet to
experience another time.
Click here for the next story in this series:
