Milford to Routeburn

22 Feb.
This may be my last entry from NZ. We fly home tomorrow afternoon. Here's what we've been doing.

Our last day on the Milford Track trip was spent in transit. We had a 2-hour cruise on Milford Sound with Real Journeys, the outfit that had taken us to Doubtful Sound. Both are fjords, not sounds. Milford is a lot smaller but still impressive. Because of the rain the day before, permanent waterfalls were larger and lots of smaller waterfalls were on many mountainsides. We went from the town of Milford Sound out to the Tasman Sea and then back. We saw some seals and seabirds, but mostly we enjoyed moving while sitting down rather than walking.

Here are the stats on the Milford Track. We walked 10 miles with a rise of about 600 feet on mostly level track on day 2, 9 miles with a rise of about 2900 feet followed by a drop of about 2850 feet plus an extra 3 miles to Sutherland Falls on day 3, then 13.5 miles back down to sea level on day 4. None of these rises and descents were straight. We did a lot of up and down on both. I have the sore knees to prove it.

At the end of the cruise, we went by bus back to Te Anau, something of a home away from home by this point. The highway (a loosely used term here) is spectacular, particularly the part from Milford Sound to the Homer Tunnel. The tunnel is 1.2 km long, with unfinished granite walls. It is also one lane, with what Lonely Planet calls the only Alpine traffic lights at each end. They run on a. 15-minute cycle except at night. The tunnel has 2 passing spots, so I guess if you are driving it at night and encounter oncoming traffic, one of you has to back down until you reach a passing spot. The Milford Sound end of the tunnel is at 940 meters. It descends from there. The tunnel was started in 1935 and only finished in 1953. The first workers were 5 men with wheelbarrows, picks, and shovels. No wonder it took so long.

Here's what wikipedia says about the road:
The road was only opened in 1953, after Homer Tunnel was finished after almost 20 years of intermittent work. The road is one of the more dangerous public roads in New Zealand, with injury crash rates around 65% higher than the rest of New Zealand's network, and a fatality crash rate of almost twice average (per vehicle kilometre travelled), making it the third most dangerous section of New Zealand's State Highway network (as of 2008).

There's also info on the likelihood of avalanches in winter, but we were there in summer. The mountains on both sides are high and spectacular. We also got to see the start of the Routeburn Track, a few km from the Te Anau side of the tunnel, which we began on 20 Feb.

Before that, however, we had a night in a lovely hotel in Te Anau. My major activities other than sleeping were sitting in the hot tub, seeing a 32-minute film about Fiordlands which we liked so much that we bought the DVD and will be happy to share with you, and having dinner in a fabulous eatery called Red Cliff. We sat in a garden room and shared salad (I lie--it was so good I ate it all myself); a "billy" of fat, plump mussels as good as the best we've had elsewhere; and an order of fresh, well-cooked blue cod. Our waitress, Tamara, was from Chile and adorable. A great break from the track.

The next day, we met the Routeburn Track trip at the hotel for tea and introductions. Nine people from the Milford Track continued on to the Routeburn. Three of them had done the Routeburn before and were back because they found it so beautiful. It was the 4th time for one woman from Australia. So we had high hopes.

On the Milford trip, we were 43 trampers (Kiwi for hikers) and 4 guides. On the Routeburn, the numbers were 19 and 3. Australians dominated this trip, but we also had a honeymooning young couple from NYC, an older couple from Yorkshire, a young Japanese woman from Tokyo, and a middle-aged couple from Christchurch. The last were our roommates--no private rooms are available in the Routeburn Track lodges. I particularly enjoyed getting to know a woman close to my age who moved to Australia from Capetown about 10 years ago.

The stats on the Routeburn: day one, which began at about 11:30, was 8 miles on the track with an ascent of 1140 feet plus a 1.8 mile side hike early on to Key Summit with about a 600 foot ascent and descent. Day 2 was 9 miles starting at 3000 feet, climbing to 4117 feet and then on a 3-mile side hike to 4970 feet, then descending to 3280 feet. Day 3, today, was 6 miles descending over 1800 feet.

None of that tells you how beautiful it was. After the first, easy mile, the track was as difficult as anything we saw on Milford. The first half of day 2 was hiking along a completely exposed mountainside in spitting rain and wind. The rest of the time we had a mix of clouds and even sun today. We were mostly above the tree line, looking at moutains from too many ranges to remember. The hike starts at the divide between the east and west coast watersheds--called in typical Kiwi inventive fashion "The Divide." The first 1-1/2 days are in Fiordlands National Park, the second 1-1/2 days in Mt Aspiring NP. The first side hike gave us a great view back toward where we had been and forward to where we were hiking for most of the day. The second was at the boundary between the 2 parks. It was a very, very steep and challenging climb. We almost didn't do it because of the cloud cover--the only reason to go is for the view. But the clouds came and went, so we did it. The views were fabulous, including a rainbow on the way down. Of all the beautiful places we have been on this trip, I think this was the most spectacular.

Lots more to report, but we need some sleep so we can pack and check out in the morning. We are back in the lovely apt complex in Queenstown, grateful to have the space to spread out and organize. I will post this while I still have Internet access and hope to finish tomorrow.