Niamh on Leave

A few years ago I came to Queenstown on my first ever ski trip. That week I struggled to stay upright, it was either the skis, the ski lifts or the pubs, all of which gave me trouble. The ski season is still a few weeks away so this time I have two less obstacles, but the pubs still remain. An upside of the colder weather is that they have already started serving mulled wine here, all very civilised, my, how I have grown!

Lots to do here, I read somewhere that if Queenstown didn’t exist, somebody would have to invent it! The self titled adventure capital of the world. Alas bungy jumping is not for me, so I lost a few points with the kids.

Instead I went for a hike. Somebody had mentioned Ben Lomond, which overlooks the town at 1748m. I needed to see if my legs were still working after Mt Aspiring NP. They were, but all the same it was a slow hike to the summit, it was one of those days when everybody you meet wants to stop a chat so in the end I was there nearly all day. I also met these fellas, but they weren’t for chatting, too interested in their grub.

I enjoyed this trail, because there’s a lot of variety. It begins in woodland before crossing some mountain bike trails, those guys looked cool. Rising out of the forest and above the bushline the world starts to look very different and feel a lot fresher, but oh those views! I met an Irish guy near the summit. He was having a dilemma as he is coming to the end of his trip and is booked to fly out at the end of the week but wanted to stay. I was possibly the worst person he could have met, as I was only ever going to encourage him to push back those flights. What’s the rush? So yes, I met him later in the pub to discuss all the places he needed to see before he even thought about getting on a plane. Not a bad day at the office 🙂