Big scenery and sore feet

Back in Queenstown after the little stroll. I'm quite tired and my feet are complaining bitterly about all this abuse they keep getting, but the walk was excellent.
I camped for the two nights on the Routeburn walk since the huts for that walk are stupidly expensive, but I'm glad I did. The campsite on the first night was just stunning. I've got a photo which I'll try to get posted soon, so I'm not going to bore you with a feeble description. The walk itself is fairly easy going and takes you from one valley, up over a saddle between the mountains, along the side of another valley and then down to a lake, the site of the second night's stop. The views from the saddle are absolutely awesome. I know the photos will never do it justice.
On the third day the walk heads back above the bush line before dropping you down again to the junction with the Greenstone and Caples tracks. It is only a couple of hours from there to the end of the Routeburn, so I headed off along the Greenstone track as planned. This track was far less travelled and follows the Greenstone valley all the way to Lake Wakatipu (where Queenstown and Glenorchy are). All the time you are walking either in the bush or along the wide open valley floor. It's a gorgeous unspoiled area with enormous views. The swing (suspension) bridges along this track are much smaller as well, usually only suitable for one person at a time, and they can be a tad unnerving!
At the end of the track, myself and the other trampers were met by a boat which took us back across the lake since there's not sensible road route to the area.
So over five days you get beech forests, alpine scenery, rain forest, bright blue lakes, bright green rivers and the most superb views - not bad really. Fortunately there were lots of very friendly and very nice people doing the walks, which meant that the evenings went by quickly and chance meetings on the tramp were a pleasure. In case you were wondering who else does this kind of thing, there were people ranging from a group of 18 year old Belgian lads through to a 72 year old Kiwi guy and a whole range of ages and nationalities in between.
Given that this will probably be the last big tamp I do in NZ, I'm glad it was so good. The sun shone most of the time and despite being on the border of one of the wettest areas of the world, there was not a drop of rain. All in all, excellent. Having said that, I'm glad not to be carrying all that gear anymore . . .