Day 42: Making the Best of an Unfortunate Situation

I did not plan on staying in Queenstown again tonight, but I am glad I did.

I woke up this morning and made my way into town to the bus stop. What I didn't realize until later was that I had confused my bus from Franz Josef to Greymouth as being my bus from Queenstown to Franz Josef. So unfortunately I missed my bus to Franz Josef. At least I didn't see it in the distance, run to catch up, and watch it drive away. That would have been disheartening.

The morning didn't start great, but I was able to book a bus for tomorrow as well as another hostel to spend the night at. At the suggestion of my dad, I made the best of my extra day in Queenstown by taking the Skyline Gondola.

First I checked into my new hostel (the one I had stayed in last night was booked for tonight). I left my bags in my room and hit the streets. When I woke up for the bus, it was almost too cold, but as the day went on the sun warmed the town. It might have also helped that I had four layers on.

The gondola rode up to the top of what I might call a mountain somewhere else, but here it only qualifies as a tall hill. The view from the top was absolutely beautiful. Lake Wakatipu spread out far below, with Queenstown on one side, and enormous white capped mountains on the other. 

When I bought the gondola ticket, they had a deal to get two luge rides for only a few more dollars. I'm only in Queenstown once. I wasn't sure what a luge was, but I found out quickly. The hill has a winding paved track, only going down a small portion of the mountain. Each person gets their own individual kart, basically you sit in it, hold the handlebars, and steer yourself down the track. The luge's motto was everywhere, "once is never enough." And they were right. I was glad I had the foresight to buy two luges. Three would have been one too many, I had no gloves and nothing to cover my face, so the wind got rough around the end of the second ride.

With my luge rides used up, I followed a hiking trail off into the wilderness. At first I was surrounded by dense pine forest, but after about fifteen minutes of walking it gave way to a spectacular open area on the side of the hill. I remember walking under a low hanging branch to be suddenly confronted with a towering white mountain. I actually stopped and put a hand up to my mouth in pure shock, the view was that stunning. 

The faint path on the right is the one I walked on.

Whenever I'm in the mountains I always find myself asking the age old question, mountains or beaches? Maybe it's just because I'm in the mountains now, but I would definitely be comfortable living in the mountains. Especially if I had a lake.

After a gondola ride back down to Queenstown, I started to wander. I had a few hours to kill before the free dinner my hostel was offering (more on that later). Queenstown is filled with stores advertising all kinds of excitement and adventure, from bungee jumping to off roading. This really is the adventure capital of the world. I wonder how that all started.

I walked down to the lake and into a small park that poked out into the water. A path walked along the lakeshore, and I took my time admiring the water and the mountains. 

When I eventually turned around, I walked through the center of the park rather than along the water, just for a change of pace. There was a memorial to three explorers that reached the south pole in 1912, but did not make it home. The monument had the final entry from the captain's journal engraved on it. Makes me feel like my trip around the world is small stuff.

I got back to my hostel in time for a free dinner. One of the staff led myself, as well as a bunch of others happy to take advantage of the deal, to a local bar where we were served a small meal of pasta. The food was not great. But that's what you should expect from free food. Needless to say I had to supplement my "dinner" with other food. The problem is that Queenstown is very expensive when it comes to eating out.

I am not proud to say that I caved into fast food for a second time. I was able to get a decent sized meal for a fraction of the price of anything else, but then again, fraction of the price, fraction of the quality. I finally felt full though, and was ready to make an end to my night in Queenstown.

Even though today's adventures were by pure accident, I could not be happier that it turned out this way. Queenstown is a great city, and I'm glad I got to experience it a little more. I definitely made some memories today that I will remember forever, and isn't that what this is all about?

Now I really do have to end this though because I have to get up pretty early tomorrow, and I need all the sleep I can get. So thanks for reading and here's to tomorrow.