Routeburn Birthdays Intermission, Day 0 – Queenstown to Routeburn Falls Hut
“Should be good weather for you,” said our driver on the way north from Queenstown.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
The wind, he said, was coming from the south, which could be seen by watching the direction of waves below on Lake Wakatipu. Southerly winds bring calm weather in New Zealand, while northwesterlies bring rain and foul weather. And indeed it was shaping up to be a bright and sunshiney day.
We changed vans at Glenorchy, and after a short ride across metalled roads, we were at a surprisingly sophisticated trailhead shelter. The on-off point for the Routeburn track not only has a roof overhead in case it rains while you wait for transport, it has flush toilets and an interpretive nature display!
The Routeburn is one of the most highly renowned of New Zealand’s Great Walks, traversed by tens of thousands of feet every year. There are four huts along the way, each charging $45 per night to stay. Most trampers stay two or three nights, so you can imagine that it’s one of DoC’s biggest earners. Because of both its popularity and wealth, it receives a lot of trailbuilding attention. So the track we set out on was beautiful: benched deeply into the hillside, evenly metalled, and well drained throughout. Every little stream was bridged, and the track was wide enough most places to walk two abreast. Starved for conversation, I took full advantage of this and yakked Blair’s ear off all morning.
About an hour in, we passed a shiny new toilet propped up on stilts near the trail. We learned from a passing guide that it hadn’t been there last time he was through. They must have installed it very recently – maybe I was the first to use it!
We continued our ascent on the side of a deep gorge, with the glassy clear waters typical of New Zealand falling and pooling far below us. Before long we reached a broad river valley named Forge Flats. The trail was rather crowded, as we had expected. At one quiet point Blair and I sat down to rest where there was a small view. Then a couple of other trampers stopped to see what we were looking at. Soon our whole little section became clogged with people stopping, looking around, and asking each other in dozens of languages “What’s are all these people looking at?” We decided that for lunch we would ford the river for a little sun and a little quiet on the other side.
The climb from the valley floor up to Routeburn Falls Hut was supposed to be the big challenge of the day, but with a little huffing and puffing we made quick work of it. Around two o’clock we arrived at Routeburn Falls Hut, surprised to be greeted by the sounds of pop music, saws, and hammers. Between the DoC hut and the guided walks hut behind it, a dozen men were hard at work building a third hut to expand the guided walk capacity.
The other surprise was a strong outhouse smell. It turned out we happened to arrive on the day that Routeburn Fall’s four large solid waste tanks were being pumped out into metal biohazard cannisters to be airlifted out to civilization. A pair of white-suited DoC workers scrubbed and soaped the hoses and tanks. Asking the hut warden later, we found out this operation is only executed once every four or five years, so really we were lucky to catch such a rare event! We hoped to watch the helicopter carrying out the cans, but it wasn’t going to make pickup until late the next day.
The warden was a highly kinetic, gregarious guy. When we managed to intercept him long enough to ask about day walks, he described a nice side trail west of the hut that would take us up to a pair of tarns and a nice view down the valley. It was a lovely walk, and much less trafficked than the main route.
We returned and made dinner in the large dining room. The warden gave his evening speech: the fire exits are here and here, please don’t hang around the helipad if we have to medevac somebody, you are liable to get your head knocked off by a rotor, etc.
Then he announced a little contest. There was a large banner on the wall in thirty languages proclaiming “Welcome to Routeburn Falls Hut and Merry Christmas.” The ranger said that if any group or the whole hut could identify twenty-five, they’d win a pound bar of chocolate.
Blair and I gave it a go, not so much for the chocolate, which was just Cadbury’s, but for the challenge. Our sole competitors were a group of Kiwis living in Australia and back here on holiday. After a bit of taunting we all decided to join forces and merge our answer lists. But they had guessed in the same places we did, so in the end we entered separately.
We missed the bar, getting only twenty answers right. Some of the trickier ones we missed: Timorese, Basque, and Burmese. Really we never had a chance, though the warden said he holds the contest every night and frequently has a winner.