The Routeburn!

The official track stops at Queenstown and picks back up at Greenstone so involves either hitching or a ferry to get you there. Sick and tired of having to hitch, Luke and I decided to pay for a shuttle to the Routeburn which is a great walk track that fishes at Greenstone so we figured we may aswell do it as an extra.

My god - we were so glad we did it! The walk, supposed to be done over three-four days, we did in one. It starts with a gentle climb up through forest. There's not too much to see on the first part but the river is of that lovely green-blue colour I keep telling you about and it was nice to walk effortlessly for a short while after working so hard on the Wanaka-Queenstown section.

Once we'd passed the groups of casual hikers moving at what seemed to be 1km an hour, we were able to pick up pace a bit and, eventually, pop out from the tree line where the 'Routeburn Falls Lodge' had been erected on huge wooden stilts upon the alpine terrain which seemed rather too permanent for my liking - NZlanders are very good at preserving and looking after its bush and yet in the middle of one of the most beautiful sections I've laid eyes on, there stands this huge 50 bed hut with flushable toilets!

Beyond the dauntingly huge and unnecessary building, however, were the Routeburn falls. Cascading down from the mountains above, the water washed down passed our track that guided us upward toward the saddle and high point of the Routeburn track. The lake from which the waterfalls came from was crazy! It was literally glittering like something out of a Disney film! I couldn't help thinking about how much Zoe would have loved it and said just the same about it being like something from Disney.

We ate our lunch at the top with views over the river before making the descent through bush to Greenstone Saddle where we would camp for the night. We passed a 150mwaterfall on the way down that was amazing! The water splashed down between all the rocks and sprayed everyone who stood at the bottom of it - I wished I had William's camera to have got a proper shot of it. Sometimes the IPhones just don't do it justice!

We camped, as planned, at Greenstone just 7.5hours after starting the Routeburn so goodness knows while DOC say you need 4 days to complete it! If anyone every asks me about the TA I will tell them to add this track on. Of course, it might not have been the same without the gorgeous blue skies we had!