Routeburn Track, New Zealand – Tramping at its best (and a bit of Japanese)

I can’t remember if it took us three days or four (it was a while ago now). I do know that for each of the days, we were treated to views that took our breath away and more than compensated for the aching limbs we were accumulating along with our miles.

Stretching across the Southern Alps, the Routeburn Track is often listed as one of the world’s greatest hikes. Pristine alpine lakes, snowy peaks and wonderful isolation reward the visitor along the route, and perfectly civilised rest places provide overnight stops that allow you to rebuild those energy reserves for the next day’s toil.

We set off with a group from Queenstown, and were one of a few non-Japanese in our hiking party. On day one the group remained quite segregated, with few of the Japanese speaking any English and so our communications were restricted to the European and American contingent. Mealtimes however provided for a sharing of food and stories (with a lot of translation help from the Japanese guide) and by the time our Japanese walkers were laughing at our curious practice of putting sugar, or even jam, on our porridge instead of salt, we had made friends and were a large happy group.

The next evening was filled with shared stories, jokes and stories of life at home and work, and our previously non-existant Japanese vocabulary was expanding rapidly. We could now say “after you, please” along with many greetings and expressions of respect and thanks. As the beautiful vistas kept us inspired to keep up the climbing (along with chocolate supplies that were shared out among the group) the trip passed by all too quickly, and we were back in Queenstown before we could say arrigato gezaimas.

This was a trek that lived up to its reputation, and the company we fell into made the days on the hike pleasant as well as memorable. And we had good weather – which is apparently a miracle in those parts!

(Jan 2001)