A beautiful clear stream flowing out of Lake Howden
Earland Falls: You turn a corner in the track and this massive blowing waterfall almost knocks you over.
This is one of the coolest waterfalls I have ever seen
Looking across onto the ranges on other side of the Hollyford Valley
Lake Mackenzie
The wardens quarters at the hut were equipted with hot shower, oven, fridge, fire and lighting. Very flash and civilised: ) The warden Evan looked after me well where I tried some of their fresh baking and home brew.
They even had concrete pads with fake grass at the Lake Mackenzie camping sight.
DAY 2: Lake Mackenzie to Routeburn Flats (via conical hill)
Early morning dew sticks to a spider web on a hebe bush.
This rock was called split rock where you could walk all the way through it.
After a tea with the warden I was off up the steep climb above lake Mackenzie.
All the flowers were starting to come out along the track
Some strange but unique alpine plant
Some mirids making the most of the good weather
Looking down the Hollyford road where we paralled the holyford road. I was able to see gunns camp and the airstrip
The path followed through alphine tussock
This is the Harris Saddle shelter which was covered in snow a couple of weeks back and they were having to helicopter walkers over this area.
Conical Hill was still closed because of a couple of snow patches like this one.
There were plenty of buttercups at the top of conical hill
The views from conical were spectacular where I could see all the way out to the sea.
Tasman Sea and Hollyford valley
A random weta I found walking through the tussock
Lake Harris
There was no lack of crickets joining all over the track
A big V rock covers the track
This is looking down onto Routeburn Flats from Routeburn falls hut.
Day 3: Routeburn Flats to start of Caples track
A big slip made these boulders fall right accross the river
The end of the Routeburn track on the Queenstoen side
2 December 2010
The weather was so great when I finished work on Tuesday so drove to the divide and jumped straight onto the Routeburn Track. Karen did the walk last week on her days off so I wanted to do it aswell. Instead of catching the bus back from Queenstown to Te anau at the end we both took a shuttle to the start of the Caples track which took us back to the divide.
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