Easter back in Q-Town

Queenstown

So we decided to take advantage of the long weekend for Easter and grabbed a ride with Natalie and Euan who were heading to Milford. We left after work on Thursday to join some packed roads heading south into the night. We enjoyed a nice sunset and a clear night. We stopped for a quick stop in Tekapo and did some night flying fox by the lake. We made it all the way to Cromwell going all well till we got a flat tyre. The car was completely packed with our gear so we had to unload pretty much the whole car to get to the spare. All good, it was a formula 1 speed wheel change probably only taking us 20 minutes total. 

We had made the trip even knowing that John was working every day, but at least he had the evening of Saturday off. So the whole time we were there we took it easy, enjoyed the views and headed into town for John's breaks and met and played Disc Golf and a beer. We were stumped as the Queenstown Disc course is much trickier than our usual Christchurch course, and John dominated.

The highlight of our time was getting up to the top of Ben Lomond, the 1600m peak perched above town. It was a strenuous climb, straight up underneath the gondola then just continuing up, up, up. It was a stunning day with amazing views to be had in all directions. Looking over the endless mountain tops Mt Cook was visible and it literally felt like we were sitting right on top of Queenstown. After our hike, we were looking forward to rewarding ourselves with a Ferg Burger but the queue was out of control, so we settled for a curry. Adding to our climb of 6+ hours, we had earlier walked from John's flat into town and then back home adding another 2 hours to the trip, making for some very sore legs.

Amy on top of the world

We did eventually get some Ferg's using the locals trick to beat the queue and they were as good as ever. And we would have done so again with Natalie and Euan before our journey home on Monday, but instead we settled for the lesser Devil Burger as Ferg was impenetrable.  

Thomas and Amy enjoying the view