One of our goals during our travel venture was to complete one of New Zealand’s GREAT WALKS. The Routeburn Track is a world-renowned tramping (hiking) 32km track found in the South Island. The track is usually completed by starting on the Queenstown side of the Southern Alps, at the northern end of Lake Wakatipu, and finishing on the Te Anau side, at the Divide.
The New Zealand Department of Conservation classifies this track as a Great Walk and maintains four huts along the track. The track overlaps two National Parks; the Mount Aspiring National Park and Fiordland National Parks with the border being Harris Saddle. The track spends a long time on the high ridges around Harris Saddle, with great long-distance views in many directions. This would elicit envy from even the most casual of Lord of the Rings fans. New Zealand conservationists and citizens alike are very serious about their beautiful bush walks and limit the number of people allowed on the trail at any given time. Again, the stars were aligned for us on this part of our travel. We enjoyed spectacular views, encountered good people and weathered some stripe-earning storms. After a long transfer to the trailhead from Queenstown we set out on the first day in pouring rain; relentless, unwavering New Zealand rain. It rained to the point that even my most waterproof apparel was no longer so. Fortunately we were prepared (enough) and it was not frigid so we still made it to our first hut with time to spare. Much to our relief, we had decided to spring for the indoor, shared, bunkroom accommodations provided by the NZ Department of Conversation, for a generous fee. With this we had access to stoves, fire, beds and shelter. I cannot tell you how much we were saved by not packing in a tent, oven etc. We often considered how our travel would have been if our brother, J.B., had been able to get time off work to make the trip. We decided he would have been quite handy with the tire incidents, bug swatting, map navigating and other Boy Scout necessities. However, he may have protested to the Hut accommodations over tent camping initially and this is where I can say Boo to boys! We were able to spend plenty of time indoors recovering, photo shooting and of course playing cards. As different as we may be, (and we are) all Cosbys play cards. It’s one of those DAD life requirements, much like jumping off the roof or not getting training wheels. I digress. Anyway, we played so many cards that we actually started making a list of “dadisms” or colloquial, old school, dad phrases. If you know me, than you know there is a long list to be imitated. We also enjoyed the company of some other trekkers in our card games as well as evening fireside chats with the DOC warden. And again, being Cosbys, we talked…. and talked. We discussed life- past, present, future and over analyzed all relationships. Throughout our hikes, however, we marveled at rainbows, stared at mountaintops, ascended rock points and descended into beach tree rainforest cover. We leaned over and under waterfalls; all that with permanently wet socks, smelly shoes and often-sweaty packs. And following in character and expectation of the baby sister, I trailed behind and slept in, only to be awoken and guided by the wiser and slightly more energetic older sister.
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