Queenstown Part 1

The next morning (Friday, March 8), we hit the road pretty early to head to Queenstown. Along the way, we made some stops at some vistas, had some lectures, and ultimately arrived around mid-afternoon. We stayed at the Pinewood Lodge, which I think is known more for its value than luxury, but it wasn’t terrible. It was kind of like a dormitory with bunkrooms, a common area, and a communal bathroom. At least we had the cabin to ourselves. We were given a couple hours to roam around Queenstown, which was nice. I think I’ve all places I’ve visited so far, if I had to move to one of them, it would be Queenstown. It’s touristy, but it has cool feel to it. The town itself has a bunch of restaurants and bars and is situated on a beach on a lake and is nestled right in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Obviously, there is a ton to do there with almost every adventure imaginable available. Every thing from sky diving, bungee jumping, jet boating, hiking, canyoning, rafting, off-roading, horseback riding, no surprise it’s known as the “Adventure Capital of the World”. Anyway, we had group dinner/discussion where I got assigned more work on top of pretty heavy load we had at the time. After dinner, we walked into Queenstown and a couple of us had a beer at an incredible spot on the water which hit the spot. We were in town for about an hour and then headed in. Most people including myself got pretty stressed out about our work, so I attempted to knock some work out. After not getting much done, I called it quits and went to bed.

The next day (Saturday) was a big one. We were hiking the Ben Lomand, which is a huge peak over Queenstown. We basically had to go through three mountains on the range to get to the summit, so we were told we would meet at the top of the first one at 9:30 AM. We were given the choice of riding a gondola up or hiking. Feeling up to the task, I chose to hike. A little more than half of us set out at 8:30 to knock out the first part. It was almost literally a vertical climb. In fact some parts were so steep that there were stairs. So after an hour and feeling exhausted already, we made it to the top and met up with the (lazy) gondola riders for our first lecture of the day (a lot of it was about plant species again). Anyway, we finally set out to conquer the rest of the mountain. It was probably a three-hour stretch and though we traversed a lot up the mountain, it was very uphill. Because a lot of people had a different pace, we spread out a lot along the trail, which was kind of nice because I have hard time stopping and starting a lot. We were to meet at the saddle of the final peak to have lunch and have another lecture. It was pretty amazing toward the top because we were essentially hiking right through clouds. It was actually almost a little discouraging at the time though because it felt like the mountain just kept going and going with a peak nowhere in sight. At one point very close to the top we were wondering if we were even going in the right direction or if we had taken a wrong turn, not being able to see anything, when all of sudden, a hole through the clouds broke, just big enough to reveal nothing but the summit, a pretty incredible sight. A few minutes later, we got to the top of the saddle and waited for about 30 minutes for everyone else to arrive and had lunch and a lecture. While we were up there, it was still very cloudy, but low cover and few peak were visible above the clouds. We were supposed to do a reflection exercise and draw what we could see. During those 13 minutes that we were silently looking at the mountains, the cloud cover completely evaporated before our eyes. Literally by the end, the sky was completely clear. It was on of the most unbelievable phenomena that I had ever witnessed. Anyway after the lecture, we were given the choice to summit the peak, which would take an additional hour to make it up or turn around. Feeling pretty good (and wanting to carpe diem), I went with the summit half of the group. If any of the other legs could be described as bad, this one could be described as miserable. I would imagine the angle would have been pretty close to 90 degrees. It was so steep that I almost couldn’t stop because I would lose my momentum. Some parts even required all four limbs. After the one hour grind, my legs feeling like jelly and my back feeling like it would lock up at any point due to my backpack, I made it to the summit and the view made it all worth it. For 360 degrees were mountains and lakes and Queenstown visible at the bottom (Hopefully I can figure out how to post video). After about 30 minutes of soaking in the accomplishment, we headed back down. Who would’ve thought going down would be worse than up? The entire trip down probably took three hours and I think I was in agony the entire time. Going straight down was so painful on my feet, knees, and lower back. By the time, I got back I almost felt sick to my stomach because my back hurt so bad. Once we got back, I laid down for half an hour and sucked it up, took a shower, and we went out to eat for a little in downtown Queenstown. We we’re out for a little bit, but we were all exhausted and went in relatively quickly and passed out.

That’s all for Queenstown Part 1. Read about my four days at Deep Cove in my next one.