Scenic town as an adventure & party hot spot

Queenstown is one of the most popular places for tourists who love adventure or partying. During the day you can go mountain biking, skiing, on a speedboat, ziplining or bungee jumping and in the evening you can party away your adrenalin rush in one of the many bars.

It is a scenic town in the Southwest of New Zealand. The town was built around an inlet called Queenstown Bay on Lake Wakatipu, a long, thin, Z-shaped lake formed by glacial processes, and offers marvelous views of nearby mountains. The countryside of Queenstown is one of the best wine growing areas in New Zealand.

Wallet lost!

After visiting the Milford Sound with my US friend Brittany we drove back to Te Anau and went straight on to Queenstown, which in total took almost 6 hours.

Brittany dropped me off at Aspen Lodge Backpackers, a cosy little hostel where almost only backpackers work (or party). A short time later Britanny wrote me that she had lost her wallet with all her documents, which she needed to rent the next car. This of course put me in some awkward position, as I was the only one she had contact with in the last 24 hours. I assumed strongly that she had left her wallet in the small shop where we had a short break. And that is exactly how it was! About a week later she received a call from that place that they had found her wallet. The New Zealanders are  chilled and nice people. Mostly you get things back that you lost.

Many beautiful hikes close to the city

From Queenstown you can do many nice hikes in the surrounding mountains. On my first day I did only a short hike, because the weather was quite rainy. I did the Queenstown Hill Walking Track, a popular hiking trail through hills and forests with panoramic views of a lake and the mountains. In the evening I had dinner with Brittany and some of her Mexican buddies in a cool burger place and later in a bar where I enjoyed a non-alcoholic ginger beer instead of alcohol because of my antibiotics which I had to keep taking after my infected insect bite in Dunedin.

Lonesome 6 hour birthday hike

In my hostel I met some Saxons, who actually walked the whole North and South Island of New Zealand in half a year and suffered tremendous hardships doing so. Spurred on by these hiking efforts I went on a 6-hour hike to Ben Lommond early in the morning the next day, which happened to be my birthday. The summit is about 4 km northwest of the city center and reaches a height of 1.748 meters.

At the starting point of the hike there was a Kiwi birdlife park where you can see the famous local bird but the entry fee of 60 NZ$ was way too much for me. The hike led through different vegetation zones. I did not take the gondola up but walked all the way, I did not pay nearly 44 NZ$ for the gondola. The gondola leads up to the mountain station at Bob's Peak, from where you have a good view over Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu.

The hiking trip itself was not very demanding, except at the summit a little. From the top, I hardly saw anything, except the many tourists that also have a short break at the summit. A big cloud hung right above the summit. It was a beautiful hike, so peaceful and quiet. When going down I heard the birds chirping and saw the mountain goats pulling at bushes.

Going up north

Back down in the valley Brittany and her buddy Luke were waiting for me and we drove 6 hours by car further north into the glacier area.
I would have liked to spend more time in Queenstown, but it wasn't even possible, because all the accommodations were already booked out, as so often. I skipped all the adventure activities that the city offers, as they seemed too expensive for me.