It was raining heavily all the way to Kinloch and we were quite disappointed because our plan was to leave the car in the Greenstone carpark (the Routeburn-Caples endpoint) and then walk back all the way to Kinloch (12km), spend the night there, catch a ride on the next morning to Routeburn carpark and start the trek.
But, the rain... we had to change our lovely plan :(
So, instead of walking from the Greenstone carpark to Kinloch we hired bicycles, loaded them to the car, Roi put the car in the carpark and cycled back to Kinloch in the rain, on the muddy road while Sarit was sitting in the warm room and read a book. (Of course we could had booked a bus and pay about 30$ per person each way, but why? It's so expensive and frustrating to pay so much for a bus when you have your own car). Luckily in the morning we caught a ride with a nice couple from the hostel that was heading to the Routeburn track.
The first day of the Routeburn track started with rain that became quite heavy when we were at the last part before the hut. The first day is mostly in a bush and you can see many waterfalls and raging rivers (especially on a rainy day...).
We were the first ones to arrive to the hut so we had lots of time to dry our cloths. As hours passed more and more people arrived to the hut until it was completely full by the evening, which means 50 loudly people. We really didn't like the idea and decided to change the next day's hut to one less popular.
The second day became quite long for us (because of the hut changes), luckily we woke up just to see a clear sky - another sunny day just when we needed it.
That day was suppose to be the best one in the Routeburn trek, so we ate fast, grabbed our bags and started walking early in the morning.
The first 2 hours were really impressive - we were alone on the trek enjoyed the beautiful mountains and lake.
After that we got up to the shelter
and not far from that point we started seeing few people walking in the opposite direction. Soon the track became busier than the streets of Queenstown on a sunny day.
The views since we left the shelter were pretty much the same all the way, nothing special.
There is a point where you can see the next hut from the top, next to MacKenzie lake and that was the most interesting view we saw since we left the shelter.
We had a quick break in MacKenzie hut and we were really glad we didn't spent the night there (we saved ourselves from 52 loudly people...).
We finally arrived to the last hut after 7 hours of walking and we were glad to find out that only 11 people are going to stay the night there. We made a good decision - we walked almost the whole track in one sunny day, and shorten our next day.
From the Routeburn you can continue either to the Greenstone track or to the Caples track.
The first one is much easier and mostly flat, the other is not.
The original plan was to walk on the Caples track (the harder one, of course), but since the last 2 days it was raining heavily, we were told that a river crossing on the Caples track was impossible so we had to change our plan. The night before the start of the Greenstone track (on the second hut of the Routeburn) we were told by the hut warden that the river crossing on the Caples was possible again. We went to sleep without knowing what we're about to do the next day.
On the 3rd day, 45 minutes walking from the hut we arrived to the junction in which we had to decide which trek we're doing.
You can guess what we chose - the hard one... and so began the Caples track:
Few small swamps crossing, and we started to climb steeply up.
It was so steep we had to climb almost all the way with our hands hopping between big rocks and slippery tree roots.
After two exhausting hours we arrived to Mckeller saddle just to find out it became cloudy so we hadn't seen too much... a short break and we started going down towards the upper Caples hut.
After less than 15 minutes it started drizzling. The weather forecast was "developing rain in the afternoon". We guessed the rain just came sooner than predicted.
Remembering that river crossing we have to pass, we quite panicked that it will be flooded again so we started speeding. We walked so fast through the slippery tree roots all the way down without noticing we crossed streams on the way, waiting to confront that flooded river.
Suddenly we saw a sign in front of us saying the hut is 5 minutes walk from where we were.
We looked at each other and didn't manage to figure out where is that flooded river.
It took us 5 hours to get to the hut from the beginning of the Caples track. It was 14:00 o`clock and the next hut was only 2.5 hours walk away, the drizzles stopped, so we grabbed the bags and started walking again, this time much more relaxed. 2 hours later we arrived to the middle Caples hut - a very small and cosy hut.
We were only 4 people there until an Israeli guy showed up waiting to his 3 friends to arrive. About an hour later they did arrived. Suddenly the quiet hut became noisy and we preyed those 4 won't stay and continue to the other hut.
One of the girls was quite exhausted and she kept trying convince them to stay in the hut. The minute we heard that Sarit burst to their conversation and told them they should keep walking because they have a very long hard day tomorrow. It worked! they picked up all their things (including Coke cans they brought with them, how weird) and left.
All 4 of us who stayed in the hut were relieved.
We had really nice evening there with a Swiss and a Canadian. That night we found out that our dear enemies, called the sandflies, attracted to fire, so we spent some time looking how they fly strait to candle's light and burned - a backpacker revenge! :)
The following day was short - about 2 hours walk and we were in the Greenstone carpark happy to see our car. We gave a lift to 3 guys which we met along the trek, stopped in Kinloch, ate a cake with Camille (the Swiss guy we just met in the last hut) and continued towards Queenstown with Adam ( a polish guy with Source sandals), shoved one of those Fregburger burgers each, and continued all the way to Te Anau.
Milford track, here we come!
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