Routeburn Great Walk - Start to Routeburn Falls Hut

Routeburn Great Walk Day 1: 12.27km in 4h17min

First day of Routeburn, and it's a brilliant sky that welcomes us. The road to get there once you passed Glenorchy is through pastures and forest. And we decided to start quite early.
It was a treat, on this road we saw: deers, sheeps ( that I think were not meant to be there ), rabbit and falcons.

The first section is native birch forest and the water of the river we are following is an incredible blue color. It's a gentle incline until Routeburn flats hut.

We make a first stop there for a snack and the view of the snowy peaks is already spectacular. There were a lot of small birds there (we learned called robin). Pretty curious and they came close.

Then until Routeburn falls, it's a steady climb and it gets rocky. You are going deeper up the valley until just before a pass. The views are amazing, and we take our time up.

The Routeburn falls hut, like the name implies, are right by a series of beautiful waterfalls and suspended on the edge of the cliff. From its balcony, the view is unparalleled.

We go up to see the falls and rest, or read for the remaining part of the afternoon. At 7:30pm, the ranger checks the bookings and gives us some information about the track. It was very informative, because he had a speaker and shared the songs of birds we were hopefully going to see on the trail. I realized that we had seen many ( or at least heard many). Unfortunately, tomorrow rain is planned for the entire day, so I doubt that we will be doing a lot of bird watching.

The temperature is borderline uncomfortable but once everyone is in the bunk room, the body heat makes me feeling toasty.
We tasted the Indian instant meals tonight! They are delicious!