Routeburn, one of the
greatest walks of New Zealand, I think it’s one of the great walks of the
world. With no prior plan, I taught
myself into walking a bit of it in a day and head back to Glenorchy and may be
do check out lake of Sylvan. But instead
I started walking and nature just took me in and I couldn’t stop until I
finished the walk.
The walk was irresistible,
nature was opening up like it was making a show, attracting walker to stay
until the end of the show.
As I started the walk colors were green and
bleu. Green mountains divided by rivers filled with glacier water that comes
from the top of the mountains making a background music to entertain walkers and
attract them to walk more and find a small window from between the trees to
look at the flow of the water coming out from the peak, changing from white
snow to immaculate bleu water running the rivers.
Slowly and without taking my
eyes off the snow I was attracted by another strong water sound that made me
turn my eyes and astonishing waterfalls were coming from all over but this time
I couldn’t see the start, is it the snowy mountain or is it a water source?
I had to find out, so I
walked up and it’s like I entered another room with new cloths, and this time
it wasn’t green or bleu but rather yellowish. The room was silent but so big
surrounded by rocky mountains covered with yellowish grass felt small and tiny
yet safe and spoiled.
Falls kept coming rough,
long and endless from between the rocks. I still didn’t figure where that force
of water coming so kept walking. The track curved and steepened to direct me to
where I needed to see the falls’ home. Astonishing! all that roughness,
violence and force of the water was coming from this steady calm peaceful and silent
lac filled by the melting snow of the mountains.
On its last stage the show
took me to this last room where all trees and rocks covered with moss. Like in
a fairy tell the trees were opening the route and waving at me like they were
saying welcome to the Routburn and take care.
Recommended starting point: East, especially when the weather is nice and finish at the Divide, I personally planed to go from there to Mildford Sound and it works out great that way. I also thought spending couple of days in Glenorchy is very nice, very rich area with a lot of small tracks, Lake Sylvan is great place also to see, it is few Km away from the starting point of Routeburn and can be done before starting Routburn, especially if planing to walk the Routeburn in couple of days.
Otherwise, the Routeburn track can be done in a day, it would be a long day but doable (about 6-8h walking)
If to stay over night an authorization has to be arranged with the DOC, as only 50 people can be on the track over night and you need to make a reservation for the Hub which is about 59$NZ/ night if not camping also can be done on the last site it is free even.
DOC link for everything related to Routeburn: http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/tracks-and-walks/fiordland/northern-fiordland/routeburn-track/features/
Enjoy and let me know what you think if you do it :) don't hesitate to post your pictures of one of the places I took pictures of just to see the difference when you go in different weather.
