May 31, 2013
Yesterday was an exciting and very wet day! Our itinerary had us hiking the Routeburn Track for pretty much the whole day. The Routeburn is one of the 9 Great Tracks (or trails) in NZ. It’s 32km (about 20 miles) long… I’m not sure how many miles that is though. The guide says it usually takes people about 3 days to complete. There are huts along the way for people to stop and rest at with room for sleeping as well. Apparently people run the whole track too in a race called Routeburn Rage (I think). That’s pretty awesome.
Anyways, when we woke up, it was pouring. Oh, New Zealand, I love your rain patterns… Well, the trip was still on. The guide company picked us up and drove us to the trailhead. The rides over was a winding road around the mountains. The guide thought that the rain was going to let up by the end of the morning, but it rained pretty much until 3pm when we left the park.
The hike was nice; the path was nice and wide and there weren’t that many steep parts. We hiked for about 2.5 hours to the hut and had lunch. When we stopped, everyone was cold because we stopped moving. Our blood flow was mainly keeping us warm in the cold and rain. I was wearing a poncho, rain coat, water resistant jacket, a fleece, a t-shirt, a long sleeve undershirt, and a tank top. Everything got wet somehow. I was extremely glad that I had hiking boots though because my feet stayed dry. We did about 10-11 miles of the track. We were supposed to go longer but they cut it short because of the rain and generally unpleasantness of hiking in continuous rain. I liked being out in this trail in nature. I was also very happy to be in the warmth and get out of the ice cold clothes afterwards though!
I got home and went to bed at 9pm. Earliest time since the first night I was in NZ!