Ray of Sunshine Travel

Hello all! I know I’m a bit behind on blog posts; to clarify, this one will cover the time frame April 29-May 5.

It’s official: We are now in the second half of the semester and ramping up! I have to admit, it’s been pretty strange watching some friends back home start summer break, especially when I’ve still got a month and a half to go here. Thankfully, the last three weeks are reserved for finals, so I only have a couple weeks of classes left. I got pretty lucky with my final schedule, as all three are in the last week, meaning I have about two weeks to study and travel.

I tried something new this week: flax weaving! Flax is a plant that grows here (you may have heard of flax seed as a health food), and it’s historically very important to Maori, who used it to create clothing, mats and ropes. Now it’s considered more of an art. We made putiputi (flowers) as our first project.

Other highlights of the week included a final $2 churro from Night’n’Day, helping orchestrate a surprise birthday party for Megan’s twentieth, and finally watching Avengers: Endgame.

The best part of the week, however, was getting to tackle the Routeburn Track, my third Great Walk and second official backpacking trip, with some more great ISA people. I hadn’t spent a ton of time with this group (Sawyer, Maddie S., Molly, Emma P., and Shayna) before, so it was really fun to get to know them better!

Our plans were pretty uncertain up until the day before we left; we just knew we wanted to do some kind of hiking. We decided, however, to take a risk and knock out the whole Routeburn Track in two days, despite a high chance of rain on the second day. Thankfully this was only 30-some kilometers instead of 60 like Kepler!

We headed out towards Te Anau early Friday morning. It was a gorgeous day, hardly a cloud in sight.

We made one stop at the Department of Conservation office to purchase a hut ticket, then a quick stop at the Mirror Lakes in Fiordland. So pretty…

By 12:30, we were on the track, and it didn’t take long before we were getting some amazing views.

Aside from doing a small side track to the Key Summit, we stuck to the main track and made pretty good time, which means we got to the hut in daylight.

And I’m so glad we did, because Lake Mackenzie, right nearby, was stunning.

I honestly thought this lake was more deserving of the name “Mirror” than the lakes we saw before!

We spent the rest of the time before dark taking in the views and settling into the hut. Since it’s now off-season for the track and first-come-first-serve for the hut, we were a little worried about availability, but there ended up being plenty of room. Hiking off-season also meant that we weren’t provided with gas stoves or flush toilets but also only had to pay $15 rather than $130 for the hut. (Besides, it’s backpacking; who needs flush toilets?)

After a nice warm dinner, we went out to look at stars.

Oh my word. They were incredible.

I wish I could have taken a decent picture of them; I seriously don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars before.

We set out about dawn the next morning as we were a bit worried about finishing before dark. The weather had turned a bit sour and it had started raining, making everything a bit slippier. Between my clumsiness, the rain, and the wind, I slipped off an edge at one point, which got the heart pumping, but thankfully I fell at a decent spot and caught myself very quickly.

The rain did add a very mysterious element to the mountains, though it obscured them a bit. Still gorgeous.

Despite our valiant efforts with raingear, we were all pretty soaked though before long. Yay for looking like a handful of drowned rats!

Thankfully, there was a hut at the perfect spot to break for lunch, and it had a wood stove, which we quickly swarmed.

We stepped away from it as little as possible because this created a draft and made everyone colder. This worked out pretty well; we were able to make oatmeal and grilled cheese just by setting it on top of the stove!

After getting ourselves a bit warmer and drier, we reluctantly pried ourselves away to get back on the trail. Thankfully, the rain had basically stopped!

The rest of the track we closely followed a river and got to see a number of waterfalls. The water was such an icy blue – just beautiful!

Finally, we reached the end – a lot earlier than expected!

So early, in fact, that the person shuttling our car from the other end hadn’t arrived yet. It worked out really well, though, because as soon as we got to shelter, it started pouring. The car showed up not too much longer, thankfully, and it was off to Queenstown!

We made a quick stop first, however, in Glenorchy. Cause, ya know. Gotta have the classic Glenorchy shed picture.

It really was pretty, though.

Next up was Queenstown. If I didn’t love Queenstown already, I would have no excuse not to love it in the fall. It’s simply gorgeous.

We went on a bit of a drive up part of the Remarkables, and we got nearly 360 degree views. Stunning. (I’m running out of adjectives to describe New Zealand…)

There just happened to be a couple taking wedding photos while we were up there. I really couldn’t resist snapping a quick picture…

Afterwards, we went to find a place to crash for the night and came across the Hippo Lodge. After unloading, we headed out for dinner.

I swear, pizza is one of the best post-backpacking meals out there.

We weren’t out on the town long, as we were pretty eager for showers and bed. We didn’t stick around too much longer the next morning, either, though we did take advantage of McDonald’s $1 hot chocolate again. And as always, great views on the way home.

And that concludes our backpacking trip! As for the rest of Sunday, I mostly spent it at church and then celebrating Megan’s actual birthday, which was a great time.

That pretty much wraps things up for this week! We’ve got our final ISA-wide trip this upcoming weekend, so stay tuned for that! Love you all!