nequine

Fantastic scenery!!!

Your accommodation looked very good indeed (as were the meals) considering their locations.

Silver Fox

No-one likes you, you are becoming very unpopular !

So jealous, especially when you mentioned Glenorchy, I absolutely love it there, a great little escape from the crwods and, imho, terrible over commercialization of Queenstown. Arrowtown is nice if you get a chance to detour there. Where are you off to next?

txflyer77

Thanks!

This trip report still has a little bit left in it. A couple days in Queensdown followed by NZ J, SQ Suites/F and NH F, plus time in Singapore and Tokyo.

HLT1904

I agree with Silverfox, this looks like an amazing vacation/trip. Definitely have to look up Ultimate hikes.

Silver Fox

So, it is not as in vogue as it used to be, however I love The Cow in Queenstown and the Botswana Butchery (amongst two). Very different ends of the spectrum! Oh - and Joe's Garage! And Madame Woos!

txflyer77

Thanks!

I went to Madame Woo's while in Queenstown! Definitely one of the better restaurants in town.

Seat 2A

Thanks for the great trip report, txflyer77! It brought back some great memories from the 80s and 90s when I used to hike the Routeburn (as well as the Rees-Dart, Greenstone, Caples and Heaphy tracks) pretty regularly. Back in those days, the Routeburn was still the busiest but one could hike it anytime without reservations. There were no all-inclusive huts such as you enjoyed - just the three regular ones that provided a mattress equipped bunk and a propane fueled kitchen. We'd catch the Magic Bus from downtown Queenstown. You could either catch it early morning direct to the tracks from Queenstown or head up to Glenorchy the night before where there was a great and inexpensive bunkhouse. There was also a small hotel/bar at Glenorchy with a proprietor by the name of Tom. Tom was a bluegrass music fan and I remember making and sending him a lot of cassettes, some of which might still be played now and then. In the morning - at a more civilized hour - the inbound Magic Bus would pick us up at the Glenorchy bunk house and take us up to the track.

I knew all the hut wardens back then. One fun aspect of those days was that all of the hut wardens home brewed their own beer. It was competitive. Some were better than others. I enjoyed enough of their hospitality over my many hikes that one trip I packed in an entire case (24 cans) of DB Export Gold - my favorite beer at that time - for us to enjoy. Typically we'd hike the track in 2 1/2 days, staying at the Falls Hut and the Lake McKenzie Hut. At the end of the track, we'd head over to Milford Sound where there was an inexpensive hostel just a short walk from the main THC Hotel where it was a real treat to have cold beer and a good dinner after completing the track. There wasn't very much out there back in those days. It was great! The next day I'd either catch a bus back to Queenstown or head back to the track trailhead and walk it back to Glenorchy in reverse.

I've added a picture from the lake near the top of the pass just to show how pretty it was when the weather was nicer...

mad_atta

Loved your little time capsule, Elton! I vividly remember walking the Routeburn in the summer of '88/'89 with a schoolfriend (who had hiked it several times before). We did it fairly fast (in ~24hrs if memory serves, overnighting at Lake McKenzie) but the beauty of it is still seared into my brain. As you observed, definitely no fancy all-inclusive huts back then!