Day 8 Queenstown

We got up this morning and found for the first time the inside windows of our van were not completely covered in condensation. We must finally be far enough away from the coast. Our only plans for today were to do a hike to Rob Roy Glacier and then head to Queenstown.

We drove about 1.5 hours through Wanaka to the Raspberry Flat parking area, fording a handful of streams to get there. The parking area seemed busy, but it was also the start of a longer multi day trek. We began our hike along a bright blue river before crossing it via swing bridge. Then we started our ascent up a canyon which was quite steep. It seemed as if we were never going to get there but after 2 hours of straight up we were finally rewarded with great views of the glacier and so many waterfalls you couldn't count all of them. One was particularly spectacular, a very thin, 200-300 foot drop into a lush green delta. Overall the Rob Roy Glacier was the prettiest and least populated of Franz Josef or Fox, you just had to work a little more to see it. Hiking down was a bit easier, but as with all hikes with lots of vertical, the knees and toes took a beating on the way down while your lungs and heart rate took it on the way up. Overall we hiked nearly 8 miles and were pretty wore out by the time we got to our B&B in Queenstown which will be the first real bed we've slept in in over a week.

The Embassy B&B sits atop a hill over looking the Frankton Arm of Lake Wakatipu. Our host recommended a tavern for dinner which we went to as traffic was terrible and Fergberger seemed like too much work at this point. Heather promised Chad we would get Fergberger later when we came through Queenstown again.

It's going to be nice sleeping in a real bed, and not having to put shoes on and climb out of a minivan to go to the bathroom in the morning.Read more