3:05pm, Lakeside YHA, Queenstown
Back in sunny Queenstown again, resting up now… Despite not going to bed till well after 1am, it seemed like the 8:30am alarm took forever to arrive. Wendy cooked up eggs, onions, and tomatoes for breakfast (the hostel had free range eggs from a nearby farm for 40 cents each), while I packed the room upstairs and loaded the car.The owner of the inn, Tony, lives here too, and is around often in the evening and morning. His voice is amongst the most peaceful and calming I've ever heard. In an emergency, he'd be perfect for commanding the masses. His introduction to the place was quite thorough. He also told stories of how Germans, and Swiss are so reliable that he never asks for credit cards for reservations. He mentioned how several times, asians have had a hard time finding the place and have ended up in a field surrounded by cows, at his sons house (randomly), and in a town 120km away. His farm has a huge walnut tree, which he mills into flour, and says the farm is self succificient, if there was a world food shortage. We tried some cherry plums from his crop. Tastes like you'd imagine a blend would taste. We left at 10am, under cloudy skies, but fortunately the howling wind and rain from last night had past. Having passed Wooly Rams (a merino wool center/cafe/shop) several times over the past 1.5 weeks, we finally stopped. They had lots of Icebreaker stuff. This region, Omarama, is the central supplier for Icebreaker brand merino.
Then we drove to Cromwell (Wendy napped for 30 minutes), and stopped at a grocery place that had free samples of breads, fruits, jams, and honeys. Pretty amazing! Haven't seen many places at all any free samples, let alone the whole store practically. Prices weren't cheap, so drove to a New World supermarket, and loaded up on supplies for the trek, and tonight/tomorrow.
40 minutes later, we reached sunny Queenstown above the green lake. Still beautiful the 3rd time arriving here. We headed straight to our favorite Kebab place for lunch (Habebes). Our frequent purchaser card has 8 stamps, and we saved a $1 on our kebab today. Then we walked to the DOC, and picked up our tickets for the Routeburn. The weather forecast is a bit disappointing. Rain developing tomorrow afternoon, rain cleaning after Wed morning, but winds will be gale force, when we'll be climbing the high passes. Not gonna be easy, or fun, but at least we may see the scenery. Hopefully it won't be worse than Mueller hut winds. We just checked into our hostel, and brought in stuff. Wendy is sleeping. She's feeling sore and a bit sick. I also am tired and have a thick throat. She thinks it might be due to the smoke at the hot tubs yesterday. Feeling more tired just thinking about high winds...
10:52pm, Queenstown Lakefront YHA
Just saw a text message from our car shuttle person, and now we'll get an extra hour sleep tonight… Wendy slept over 2 hours this afternoon after arriving at the YHA (and ~1hr during the drive). I unloaded the car, and also rested a bit, though couldn't quite get to sleep. Just before 5pm, I left to pick up a kebab for Wendy before the place closed at 5:30pm, for her to bring on the hike tomorrow. When I got to the counter, they were all out of many of their salads, so had to make due with what was available. Should still be quite good tomorrow for dinner at our 1st hut. I also stopped by the DOC again to re-check the weather. Seems like the front is moving in tomorrow afternoon, and will be out 24 hours later. So start hiking early tomorrow, and late the following day. The Routeburn track isn't nearly as steep or exposed as the Mueller Hut track, so high winds should be a little easier to manage. I also found a wi-fi spot (1 day left on our Tomizone account) to send a quick email to family. When I returned to the hostel, Wendy was awake, and feeling much better and energized! That was great, since I was still feeling a bit run down. She made salad for "pre-dinner", while I worked on packing some bags. The salad was great. The kitchen here is huge and provides tons of burners and counter space. We could see the lake out the window from the table.
After our salad, and honey-tea, we eventually made our way into town. I dropped Wendy off to check email, filled up the tank, and found a decent parking spot in town near the lake. There was a young accordion player along the lakefront playing romantic ballads, posing for pics with passerbys. After I found Wendy, we walked to Fergburger, our favorite burger place, where we had "the usual". Double Ferg w/ cheese for Wendy, Lamby (lamb-burger) for me. Our third visit to Ferg's was excellent as always.
Wendy sits on the bench with her Macbook, where we were able to find a Tomizone wi-fi hotspot to check internet. Later we headed to Fergburger...
Fergburger rocks! They are open 22hrs a day, and have plenty of people waiting for burgers all the time. Wendy is a happy camper holding a double Ferg with cheddar...
Then we returned to the car and started moving some of our valuables into Wendy's backpack, which we'll be storing in a locker while we're gone on the hike. There have been cases of car break-ins at the trailheads on some of the tracks, so we're taking some extra precautions.
The shuttle lady will pick up our car tomorrow at 8am, so we need to have it completely packed by then, with just our backpacks for the hike to take with us. Wendy just sorted our food, leaving only what we need for breakfast, and the hike, in the fridge. I filled a half empty PB jar with some jam (my own Goober spread!) to take on the hike. The car shuttle pick up was originally planned for 7am (early!), but has been changed to 8am. More sleep, but a later start to the hike, which could mean hiking into the storm. We'll see. Right now, I'll just enjoy the extra hour of sleep. Time for a shower.