It's been a busy five days (!!) since leaving Wanaka! We mentioned in our last update that we'd spent the past few days in Queenstown and Paradise. Queenstown is a great city, and is definitely the adventure capital of New Zealand. I think it is a particularly awesome city if you have a lot of money to burn, which we don't, and so we didn't get much adventure tourism in. HOWEVER, we did stay at one of our favorite hostels in New Zealand: The Last Resort.
We mostly wandered around and did errands in Queenstown, and so our favorite part of our time there was actually going into Glenorchy to confirm details with our car moving service for the Routeburn Track and do some sightseeing for Kara's birthday! The road from Queenstown to Glenorchy is unbelievably beautiful, and has got to be one of the most amazing drives in the world. When we got to Glenorchy, we set up the moving service (Routeburn is a straight track rather than a loop, so we needed the service in order to have a car on the other end.) Michael and Kiyomi move the cars and then, if there isn't a car that needs to be moved on the other side, run the entire track in a day back to the Routeburn Shelter where the track starts (which is near their home in Glenorchy). Nothing makes you feel out of shape like hearing that someone is going to run the three day hike you've laboriously prepared for in a single day! Or, “a few hours," as Michael put it. OOF. After doing the track I'm even more impressed–much of the track is very uneven, rocky, and steep, and definitely not running terrain. Michael also gave us a very interesting tutorial on how to chop wood, which I think Jordan is looking forward to putting into practice.
After we got everything set up with them, we drove further on past the turnoff to the start of the Routeburn track and into Paradise. Paradise, according to The Lonely Planet, is “just a paddock.” I SPIT UPON THEM. Paradise deserves it's name 100%; it's by far one of the most beautiful places we've seen in New Zealand so far, and we've seen plenty of beautiful places. It wasn't easy to capture in photos, but we tried. If you want to do it justice though, just watch Lord of the Rings–it is the site of many of the most iconic places, including Isengard, the entrance to Fangorn Forest, and Amon Hen. The whole area looks so Lord of the Rings-y that we started humming the soundtrack to give it a suitably epic feel.
Well, I am pleased to say, we got more lucky than we could ever have hoped for! It didn't rain on us once. Not even the tiniest drop!! We expected at least a few showers, at absolute minimum. We took our time each day, to better enjoy the scenery without wearing ourselves out, and it really paid off. The first day of the track starts at the Routeburn Shelter, outside of Glenorchy, and climbs about 500 or 600 meters to the edge of the treeline. On the way, there are some of the most beautiful and blue views of the Routeburn River, and then eventually the Routeburn Valley.
Kara says: Jordan and I also took a moment to go out and do some stargazing. It was an incredibly clear night, and the milky way was shining full force. It was pretty cold and windy though, so we didn't linger.
Kara says: There was a very disctinct difference between Aspiring National Park and Fiordland National Park. We passed though several distinct ecosystems just on this one tramp, so close together- The power of weather, geography, and nature is really inspiring.
We crossed past about a million scenic waterfalls, including the famous Earnshaw Falls, which the track goes almost through. Eventually we made our way down to Lake Howden, which was sandfly territory for sure (we only noticed a few on the rest of the track-- again, LUCKY!!), so we moved swiftly on to the end of the track- The Divide on the Milford Highway. WE DID IT!