The day began with an early wake up and a walk down to the bakery for some breakfast and coffee. This bakery is slowly becoming one of my favorite places in Queenstown. They have incredible coffee, jelly donuts (although they call them jam donuts ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ), AND pies. The lady at the counter is also the sweetest women ever.
After breakfast, I came back to the hostel, woke up Davis, and then we started out for Glenorchy. Glenorchy is a town on the other end of the lake, only a 40 minute drive. From there, we found the trail head to one of New Zealand's great walks: the Routeburn Track. This is a multi-day hike, filled with spectacular views, and is known as one of the best in New Zealand. We didn't do that one. Unfortunately, our time constraint only allowed for us to hike Sugarloaf, an offshoot of the Routeburn Track, but proved spectacular in its own right. I was particularly excited for this one because it shares the name of a hike that I would do with my friends and family back home.
The sun had just risen by the time we got to the trail head, but the sky was blotted out with clouds and the mountains covered with fog. The scenery wasn't anything special, but still very pretty; there were large hills surrounding the open farmlands next to us. However, we did not realize that we were only seeing half of what there was. We originally thought that the fog around the mountains was simply the cloudy sky, and it didn't even seem like the mountains were being cut off. They just looked like really big hills. It wasn't until we finally completed the hike that we realized there was a much better view hidden in the clouds.
The mountains in New Zealand are very unique. At the top, they are jagged, rocky, and covered with snow. Just under that is a tundra-like portion with no trees, lots of bushes, and frozen soil. Below that is the coniferous environment, filled with lots of winter trees, creeks, and waterfalls. However, I think the best way to describe this bottom portion is to picture a cold jungle with nothing that wants to kill you.
First, we pushed through the first portion pretty quickly, but it was really steep and made us work up a sweat. We were peeling layers off by the time the terrain leveled out. It was a bit more chilly up there but it felt refreshing after the climb up. We began to see clearings up ahead. This was the part of phase two. We emerged from the tree line to be greeted with the very cold, very open bush. The bush is known around New Zealand as the parts of hills and mountains where there are no trees, but just large, rough bushes growing in frozen soil. We were very high up by now and we would have been able to see the entire valley below us if we weren't in a cloud. During the time that we reached the highest point of the hike, we could only see about 50 feet in front of us because the fog was so dense. We trekked along the ridge line between two massive peaks that we didn't even know were there! We only found out after walking about a kilometer more, turning around, and seeing the sky open for about 30 seconds to reveal a rocky, snowy peak. This seems like a hikers worst nightmare, but the summit was more eerily cool than disappointing.
We made our way down the other side of the mountain through these funky, creepy looking trees which were only enhanced by the fog. The terrain was steep, and it took considerably longer to go down than to go up. On the way down, the sky cleared just in time for us to reach the bottom:(. At the bottom of the hike, there was an huge lake in between three tall peaks. The lake was still and quiet, and it made for great pictures now that we could actually see the sky. I even tried swimming in it, but when I ran in, I turned back before the water could get above my knees. I guess lakes get pretty cold when they exist in near tundra weather all the time. After our pit stop at the lake, we made our way back to the trail head where we realized how special this country really is. The mountain ranges revealed themselves now that the sky was clear, and it was a sight to see just as the sun was setting. Apparently, we were in the area of New Zealand where they shot scenes of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings for anyone that has seen the movie. But we couldn't stay forever and we were exhausted from the day. We climbed into the car and drove back to Queenstown with the heaters on full blast.
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