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We work at 5 and packed. Garth was worried we wouldn't be ready in time and made me rush and I accidentally smashed our 2 big plates!!! Which not only probably woke the whole camp site but we are now 2 plates and a toaster down! :(
We parked our van at the back of the campsite and at 7am got a 2.5hr mini bus back to Queenstown. We had a 2.5hr wait where we ate an early lunch and looked around town a bit before getting another bus up to the Routeburn shelter where we began our three day trek!! As out driver picked us up from Queestown he asked for our names to check them off against his list, he found our names and said 'ooops - I must have spelt it wrong, sorry,' to which Garth replied 'no, it's spelt correctly...' IT WAS SOOOO FUNNY!!! LOL!!!
Day 1
We walked 8.3km at up 1500 feet!
It was harder than we thought but extremely beautiful. It certainly lived up to its name! We began in thick forest with moss growing on all the trees and stones! Some trees were 100 feet tall!! Our windy path crossed numerous swing bridges and we got an AMAZING view of Routeburn Valley 3/4 of the way through thanks to a big landslide back in 1994. I even managed to to a timed photo of the two of us there! Jonny Back would be proud!
The climb was steeper than we has anticipated which was hard on Garth as he was carrying the large bag with all our cloths and food in. I was carrying a smaller bag with the sleeping bags in, but I'm not used to wearing a bag so it rubbed my arms a lot. (next time well save up a bit more money to afford some proper walking gear!)
We were very happy to see our overnight stop - Routeburn Falls Hut where we were 2 of 48 bunks. There were no showers but a good kitchen! Garth was very excited to sleep on a proper matrice as opposed to our van sofa!!
At 7.30 we had a briefing from the hut manager about safety and I was surprised at the amount of Israeli people there were! I went to bed soon after that and left Garth talking to this nice guy called Greg from Seattle - also on a career break!
The night was VERY cold. I had every layer on in my sleeping bag - even my cost and it was just enough.
(ps-we hadn't actually reached Lake Harris yet, I just wanted a blog named after it...for obvious reasons!)
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