Milford & Routeburn Sept 1-3

I finally escaped Dunedin after more than 2 months bound in its wintry grasp, to take my visiting parents on a 1.5 week road trip around the South Island. The weather was the cold, wet and bleak variety much of the time, but at least the days were finally getting to be a bit longer. The first stop was the lakeshore town of Te Anau and a day trip out to Milford Sound. We made a quick stop at Mirror Lakes and opted for a several hour walk to Lake Marian, both places where I became fascinated by the crisp reflections. Lake Marian was oddly low, the surface being perhaps 30m below its spill over.

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Then onward to Milford where the weather had already arrived. Due to several dry days prior, Milford was drier than I had ever seen and the usually intangible number of waterfalls could be counted. At least the touristas were limited in quantity as well. We opted for a boat tour, something I had yet to do. The Sound was a shadowy, gray tunnel- two vertical walls of rock and trees, a floor of rough dark blue-black sea and a hazy roof of thick gray and diagonal rain. It was nice although I had previously been spoiled by several geology-related helicopter flights in the area. We were fortunate in our timing because we drove through Homer Tunnel hours before it started snowing and the following day the road was closed for several days due to snow.









The following day we drove through the Queenstown gauntlet and on to the road to Glenorchy and the eastern start of the Routeburn track. Despite a rather vague and uncertain weather forecast, we set off for an overnight trip up to the Routeburn Falls Hut. As with all Great Walks, the Routeburn was perfectly graded such that significant elevation was gained with relative ease. The track passes through mature beech forest, skirts the edge of a blue-watered river gorge, opens out on expansive river flats and then continues to climb to a second hanging valley, at the lip of which sits the Routeburn Falls Hut. The hut sits right at tree line, lower here than elsewhere due to the strong winds blasting down from Harris Saddle. The panoramic view of the main valley below and peaks above from the hut's balcony is really quite a sight. A grim wood supply and enormous hut ensured we slept early to combat the cold. The morning we awoke to find ourselves in a winter wonderland, surrounded by 10cm of snow, which continued to lightly fall from the sky.









The walk back in the snow was thoroughly pleasant, as well as the drive back through Glenorchy under dark and heavy skies. After four parking spaces (30 minute time limit), we finally put Queenstown (QTrap as I call it) behind us for the much more manageable Arrowtown. Overnight we slept through the M7.0 Christchurch earthquake, which caused quite a stir for that city (more on this later). Then over a snowy Crown Range to Wanaka and on to the West Coast.