NZ is a magical place (regardless if you’re a Lord Of The Rings fan or not!). Doing one of the Great Walks is a bucket list item for many, myself included. I am an experienced hiker but rarely do overnight trails. The hut system in NZ gives you a great chance to do an over-nighter without carrying a tent, stove and so forth. The fact that you’re hiking through some of the most incredible scenery the eye can see is a bit of a draw too!
We settled on the Routeburn Track as for our first Great Walk – a choice based on reading a variety of blogs and knowing
that we wanted mountains rather than coast lines.
The Routeburn track is 33.1km long. From the Routeburn Flats end towards the divide (East to West), the route is summarised below and can be viewed on the DOC brochure:
- Day 1 to Routeburn Falls
Distance: 9.8km
Elevation change: ~400m↑
Terrain: Very easy muddy/ gravel trail
Tree cover: Plenty – relatively sheltered as all of day 1 is below the tree line
Time (DOC recommendation): 2.5 – 4 hours
Time (us): 2.5 hours – limited stops - Day 2 to Lake Mackenzie Hut
Distance: 11.3km
Elevation change: ~250m↑, ~300m↓
Terrain: Straightforward terrain, but steep and narrow in parts. No scrambling or river crossings that weren’t bridged.
Tree cover: Limited – very exposed section of the walk
Time (DOC recommendation): 4.5 – 6 hours
Time (us): 5 hours – we stopped quite a lot as it is stunning - Day 3 to the Divide
Distance: 12km
Elevation change: ~350m↓
Terrain: Very easy muddy/ gravel trail
Tree cover: Plenty – relatively sheltered as all of day 3 is below the tree line
Time (DOC recommendation): 4 – 5.5 hours
Time (us): 4 hours – limited stops
You’ll be carrying your packs but even so we found the distances went quickly. We found the guide times from the DOC were a bit slow for us – we’re not quick hikers but we aren’t slow either and I’d say average fitness for 30 year olds.
Booking the huts
I won’t go into detail here as this is documented on the DOC website. The thing I will say, however, is that you need to be on
it when booking opens if there are certain days you want to hike as they do sell out quickly. There are often cancellations, particularly if bad weather is forecast. We were on the site when booking opened for both Milford and Routeburn and, with a little flexibility in our dates, managed to lock in what we wanted. Routeburn is a little less competitive than Milford, but there are still only ~48 or so beds in each hut per night, so capacity is tight. If you’re camping, it is a bit easier.
Getting to the hike
There are a number of options:
- Drive to one end and get your car or camper relocated to the other
- Book a transfer with a company like InfoTrack
- Pair up with hikers going the other way (subject to your hire car insurance)
We chose option 2. It wasn’t cheap but it was worthwhile as it meant I could have a solid nap rather than drive back to Queenstown. The bus was also lovely and warm which was very welcomed given how wet we’d got on day 3.
Planning your departure times for each day
At around 8am each day the Hut Warden will get a weather update. I would highly recommend waiting for that unless you know exactly what the weather is doing. For example, on day 2 we left at 11am and had a beautiful dry walk. Other walkers left at 7.30am and ended up being rained on almost the whole way (meaning they also didn’t get the views from Harris Saddle. The walk times aren’t actually that long so you do have the flexibility to leave later if that’s favourable. The other thing to note is that the huts are fun but if it’s raining outside, everyone will be inside. This can get a little boring if you don’t have a book or want to socialise. If it’s beautiful weather it’s a whole other story because you can sit by the falls or lake and do some extra mini walks*.
*I appreciate you can do this in the rain too but it was pretty cold and we didn’t want to risk it on night 1 when we weren’t sure of the weather for day 2 or our ability to dry our gear.
Navigating
The Routeburn is very well maintained and it’s genuinely hard to get lost when the weather is fine. However, when the weather is poor it can evidently be more tricky, particularly on day 2 over Harris Saddle. You’ll come across quite a few hikers on your way going both directions but less so than I thought we would – we maybe met 20 hikers each day total on track.
Although we believed it would be easy to navigate, we agreed a backup would be wise. Before we lost reception in Glenlochy, we started the track within the All Trails app. This gave us a GPS location at all times and also helped us to work out how far down the track we were each day. It’s worth taking a paper map with you too (the DOC office can give you one) to be safe.
Water
One great thing about Routeburn is you don’t need to carry much water as you can fill up on the way. The hut wardens will tell you more but on day 2 we didn’t carry any extra water – just 1 bottle each, and we filled them up twice on the way.
On the first day we carried 2 litres each, and on day 3, 1 liter each (we refilled once on the way).
What to take (clothing)
- A good rain coat with a hood
- Overtrousers
- A spare packable rain coat if the forecast is bad (I double rain coated one day and was very glad for it)
- Woolly hat or buff – we did the hike in December and still needed it
- 3 t-shirts, 2 baselayers tops, 1 pair of shorts, 2 fleeces/ jumpers, 4 pairs of socks and undies, 1 pair of trackies
- Sunglasses
- Cap/ sun hat
- Flip flops or slides to wear around the hut
- Hiking boots
What to take (gear)
- Comfortable pack – mine is 65 litres but I could have gone a bit smaller if some of my kit was more efficient/ better grade (my sleeping bag for example is quite bulky)
- Two water bottles – 1x 600ml, 1x2l (see note above)
- Sleeping bag
- Ear plugs – you do sometimes get snorers and younger families in the huts
- A pack of cards or a good book
- Power bank
- A bag liner or bin liner to put your kit inside, inside of your backpack
- A dry bag or ziplock bag for your phone, plus another one for other electricals like power bank
- Torch/ head torch
- Lightweight pan
- Metal fork/ spoon
- Food for each night you’ll be on the track, plus an extra night as reserve – sometimes the tracks get closed due to poor weather and get held at a hut for an extra night
- Thermos flask and cup
- Waterproof bag covers
- Toothbrush & toothpaste
- First aid items: Paracetamol, ibuprofen, blister-plasters, wound pads, tubigrip
What not to take
- Anything that requires electricity – there’s no power in the huts
- Stove or lighter (we were told we would need a lighter but didn’t need it)
- Washing up liquid or hand soap – they have it in the huts
Food options
Lots of our hut fellows had dehydrated food, while some went all in and brought a full steak dinner. We even heard of someone carrying a box of wine! We opted for pasta and sauce for dinner – pesto for one night and tinned tomato sauce for the other – and porridge for breakfast. For lunch we packed sandwiches. It wasn’t the most exciting but worked perfectly. Our full list of food for two people (we do eat quite a lot..):
- 1kg pasta
- 400g tin tomato and vegetable sauce
- 200g jar of pesto (we had half left as our back up night)
- 400g bag of mixed, salted nuts
- 300g bag of peanut chocolate cookies
- 4 sachets of mushroom cup-a-soup
- 200g of hot chocolate (embarrassingly we got through the whole bag!)
- 500g of porridge oats – we went for pre-spiced to save taking extra toppings
- A bar of Whittakers chocolate
- 10 sandwiches – a bit of honey and cheese with relish
Things to watch out for
- Kea!
The World’s only alpine parrot graces the Routeburn Track with its presence. They’re beautiful but be careful not to encourage them – either with food or by leaving your gear out. The hut wardens will tell you this too but kea are known to pinch and shred walking boots left out overnight, eat hikers food, and even lock hikers into huts! - Didymo
This is not one you will see or want to come across but unfortunately four (at the time of writing) streams between Routeburn Falls Hut and Lake Mackenzie Hut are infected with Didymo. Be sure to avoid going into these streams or filling up your bottles as it spreads really easily. The resulting impact is often called snot rock. - Guided walk groups
It’s hard to plan for this but worth bearing in mind. Other than the DOC huts, there’s a guided walk option which lets you do the track carrying less kit and getting certain extra luxuries – hot drinks made for you, lunches and nicer huts. The groups are quite large and if you end up at one of the shelters at the same time as them, you’ll struggle to get in. Not ideal when the weather is a bit grim!
Last thing to say is enjoy. It’s a spectacular walk and an amazing experience. One of the highlights of my NZ trip from 2024/2025.
