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Published: December 12th 2010
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I leave Te Anau behind after a last visit to my favourite coffee shop for breakfast.
Bump into local deer farmer Roy who I'd shared a drink with last night - very nice chap. Spent the rest of last evening with a couple from the Isle of Wight (sorry Rob - they're invading) and a couple from Colorado. Interesting people who don't know each other but keep bumping into each other all over NZ.
Then in the car and the long drive up to Queenstown. Take a detour up the Remarkables and take a couple of pics then down into town and check in to my second home at Pinewood. Being back in a town makes me feel a bit low so I jump in the car again and drive out to the road end past Glenorchy to the beginning of the Routeburn track. I head out at just before 4pm and decide I'll only go out for an hour and a half and then head back.
I start along the lazy and flat Routeburn track but soon get to the turn off up the Sugarloaf track. There's a pass (saddle) up above me somewhere but it (officially)
View towards Glenorchy
Also known as the million-dollar view (problem is, property with this view now costs much more than that ;) takes 2-3 hrs to get to so not sure I've allowed enough time. I pass a bedraggled-looking couple who have just come down the trail and they warn me with wide, staring eyes of the fallen timber and the likely detours I'm going to need to take to avoid the treefalls. "Sounds like fun" only slightly mockingly.
Actually, after the rest day and the long drive, my legs and mind are raring to go and the track is a great, wild root-ridden trail that rises sharply up the hill through the bush. I find myself leaping from rock to rock, root to root and enjoying every second of it. A Kaka screams at me as I rise and I spend a bit of time chatting with him before heading on. They're right about the trees but I'm also right about the fun 😊 Scrambling through them, popping round them, leaping from log to log - great fun.
I feel alive again - so glad I drove all the way out here. I keep checking my watch feeling sure I must be running short of time but it keeps surprising me pleasantly so I keep running. An hour and
a bit in and I clear the bushline. The view behind me is simply breathtaking. The Routeburn peaks rise off to my right but the view down to Mt Alfred and Glenorchy trumps that easily.
I don't quite make it to the pass before my "turn back" alarm goes off but I'm only hundred feet short or so. Wary of doing too much and noting the cold wind building, I take some pics and begin the run down. Down through the fallen trees is even better. My legs seem possesed - I scramble past logs and stumps and root and rocks as if they were playthings (which is exactly what they are the moment 😊.
Back down to the beginning of the track in exactly 2hrs 20mins and it's back to car and back to Queenstown for a very welcome shower. Pop out and find some food and then decide against another night of madness in town and retire to read my book and do a bit of planning instead.
All in all, a bit-y day but made worthwhile by Sugarloaf pass - one to go back to me thinks. There is a hut a couple of
hours on from the pass so could make it an overnighter or run the 10hr loop in half a day probably. Next time.
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Rob
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tiny tiny world
Did you ask the couple if they knew me? Not my escaped tenants were they:-) Frankton looks nice. Is that a paved airfield I can see heading towards the lake? Good for focussing the mind on takeoff...