Day 10 - Routeburn Track day 2
Day 2 takes you up above the tree line, where you stay for the rest of the day. .. and I had learned my lesson - it was time for the sun hat.
.. the ridiculously bright orange hat that I borrowed from my then-roommate. It made me look a bit cartoony, what with my shorts and the black merino wool base layer around my legs. I did not mind though, as the hat was protecting me from the sun as well as anybody who might be hunting in the area. Plus if I got lost, it would be easier to spot me. There were many benefits to this arrangement, saving a bit of money on an expensive trip being only one of them.
The previous day really tired me out, so I made sure to get plenty of sleep.. and this time I actually could, since the room I slept in was almost completely empty. Well rested, well fed, all packed and almost ready to go, I was tightening up my shoelaces beside MacKenzie Hut and lake, surveying my map, and getting ready for the long hike ahead.
And at that exact moment a girl in a skimpy yellow bikini and a towel walked up from somewhere out of my view and stopped not too far from me. She said good morning and walked on, then dropped the towel, and jumped into the lake.
This blew my mind. That water was ice cold! Who was this and why did I not remember any women who might look cute in bikinis from the night before? I wasn't on the lookout for women or anything, but cute women who might look good in bikinis tend to stand out, especially in the middle of nowhere with not too many people around and only 1 common area where you can sit down, cook, read, or socialize indoors. There was a campground, but if she was staying there, that's where she'd go swimming. And how could she just jump into super ice cold water like that anyway, and why would anybody ever do something like that?
I pondered all that for a while, tied up my shoelaces, and set off. This was going to be a long day - longer and more challenging than the previous day's hike, taking me over the highest part of the trail, for the most part all above the treeline. I popped 2 aspirin pills and started walking. About an hour later I found myself high above Mackenzie Lake.
In the centre of the image below, down by the clearing by the lake, you can sort of see Mackenzie Hut.
The pain in my left knee quickly came back and started bothering me a bit.. This coincided with plenty of amazing photo ops though, leading to frequent breaks... and the fact that I had a bunch of snacks and a lot of food left and "only" 2 days of hiking left also meant that I could also be far less conservative with my snack and food rationing. All that went hand in hand with me taking my damn sweet time.
Did I mention how clear the skies were? Fiordland National park, which I had been hiking through on both trails so far, gets 200 rain days a year and some parts more than 8m/320 inches of rain a year. That is a lot of rain! The wettest place in the world reportedly gets 12m. I was incredibly lucky to have encountered only a couple hours of light rain on day 4 of the Milford Track, zero rain after that, and incredible blue skies for all of my time spent in Milford Sound and on the Routeburn Track.
This mountain had a very unique mountaintop
Another view of MacKenzie Lake and Hut. The trail slowly takes you about 270 degrees to the right and up back into the Hollyford Valley, then over the Ailsa mountains through the Harris Saddle and eventually into the Routeburn Valley, which the trail is named after.
What the hell am I talking about? Reference map again here