The Routeburn is one of New Zealand’s renowned “Great Walks”, and as such it has wide trails, huge huts, lots of people, and lots of signs telling the people where to go.
Since it is a one way hike with vast distances between the start and end points, I turned in my rental car, shipped one bag to Te Anau from Queenstown, and got a shuttle to the start. The trail itself is certainly spectacular, but it wasn’t necessarily THAT much better than all the other hikes I’ve been doing here. In fact some of my previous hikes were perhaps more amazing to me. Regardless, it was indeed a great walk, and I scored great weather yet again. I purposely booked two nights at the first hut (Routeburn Falls Hut), with the intent of doing some dayhiking exploring the second day, and that turned out to be a big advantage since the second day was pouring rain for the first half of the day. Worked out perfectly.