After 24 hours of much needed rest I’ve booked a bus back to the transport hub of Christchurch for tomorrow.

The walk was superb but physically demanding. Due to hut availability I had a short walk on days 1 and 4 with two days of 30km in the middle. This is a full 10 hours of walking and really pushed me at times. The Routeburn track, known as one of the “Great Walks”, is 38km of ever changing scenery through Mount Aspiring National Park. My first nights stay was on the Routeburn flats, very close to the start. Past glacial activity has partially filled the valleys with loose rock creating flat plains of rivers and flowers at altitude. The walk then ascends through beech forest and tussock clearings before zigzagging through sub-alpine mountains and reflective lakes, a 2 hour detour up to conical point gave great views over the Alps and out to the Tasman Sea before dropping down to the Mackenzie huts. Where ironically there was no room for me. I cooled off in the icy lake under the same name and continued down to the Howden huts. I’m making it all sound very short. It wasn’t. I stayed my second night there ready for the next big day.

The Caples track starts where the Routeburn finishes and is quickly testing with an almost vertical and endless accent through beech forest (nothing to do with beeches, just the name of the terrain), over rivers (no leeches here!!), and through a beautiful valley to the last hut. Again I'm making it all sound very short, and again, it wasn’t. By this point I was shattered, the only thing keeping me going was the endless joy of filling my water bottle with the ice cold water from the many crystal clear springs and streams, each with a slightly different flavour due to the quantities of snowmelt and mineral content. A short 7km walk took me back to Lake Wakatipu, from there a boat back to Glenorchy, and then a bus back to Queenstown. Here are a few pics from this epic walk.

The summit of Conical Hill.



Icy Lake MacKenzie.



A view on the ascent to Harris Saddle.



At the base of the 174m Earland falls on the way down to Howden huts.