Day 5: Queenstown and onwards…

We woke up in Fox Glacier, it was a clear morning and we had plans to take a helicopter tour of the Glaciers and Mt. Cook. We decided to find a nice place for a picture of Mt. Cook and Fox Glacier while the sun rose over the mountains. As we waited, the fog and clouds moved in. The change in weather ruined the photo moment, and a good chance at a helicopter ride, so we took off for Queenstown.

We stopped off at a small town called Arrowtown just outside of Queenstown. It’s a very nice, small, cute, tourist trap of a town… We didn’t have a good stay there… In fact, Melissa is censuring anything I say about it… But, I can talk about my hamburger. It was a “Meat Lovers burger”, consisting of steak, ham, bacon, and of course a hamburger patty. It was amazing… I would say more about Arrowtown, but “What happens in Arrowtown, stays in Arrowtown…”

After Arrowtown, we quickly drove to Queenstown to take the gondola to the top of a mountain. The views are amazing. The lake is huge… The day was clear and we could see for miles. We didn’t spend much time at the top, since we weren’t done traveling for the day. We wanted get out of Queenstown and stay at an old Chalet at the end of the lake called Kinlock Lodge (built in 1868). It’s just about 90km up the lake (yes, the lake is that big…)

We drove to Kinlock that afternoon; it was a longer drive than expected… The road was twisty, and we spent 9km on a dirt road to the Lodge. The Lodge was awesome. The views were great, the mountains and lake both were beautiful. The bed in the hostel was very comfortable, besides being a king size bed. We ate dinner at the lodge, it was wonderful. Just about everything about the place was great. In fact, the two fishermen on the wharf we saw catch two salmon… It was an experience.

The day was long. We drove most of the day, but ended up in a great hostel. We needed the rest, since the next day was even bigger…