Day 17 – Whakaari Conservation Area to Queenstown

My plan was to do the whole trek from Whakaari to Queenstown in one day.  Fourty-eight kilometers, that’s not much more than a marathon right?  And I have all day to do it, so it should be fine.

I tried to get out of bed early, but was too comfy in among the trees.  The section downhill back to the carpark was quite cruisy, but I still didn’t get on the road proper until ten in the morning.  It was gorgeous tramping weather, slightly overcast and cool.  The road wasn’t too busy, and the views were wonderful as promised.  I made good progress, alternating between the road surface and the grassy verge.  Stopped for lunch at a pullout by the beach, and ate at a picnic table so crooked and far from the road access that it looked like it had been tossed up by the tide.  Met a friendly Queenstown kayaker and his friend, chatted and skipped stones for a while.

I was making fast progress with no obstacles to navigate, but by the time I hit the thirty-five kilometer mark, I was fading.  It was past seven, there was no good camping in sight, and it was starting to drizzle.  I swallowed my pride and stuck out my thumb.

The very first car to pass picked me up up – a caravan containing an Aussie and his English girlfriend, across briefly from Australia so she could get a new visa.  They informed me I was just a couple kilometers shy of a camping area, but by now I was committed to the plan of staying indoors tonight, so I had them take me the rest of the way into town.

When we rolled into Queenstown, I was overwhelmed even before we got out of the car.  It was Saturday night, the rain had cleared up, and there were backpackers everywhere.  Drinking in the park, sitting on the public stairs, wandering the streets.  To go from seven days of near-solitude to this spectacle was a bit much, so I quickly left the town center and started searching for a hostel.  Unfortunately, all of them seemed to be closing down just as I arrived.  In the end, I settled for camping in the holiday park at the top of town, even though they had no trees of a suitable size.  As I was struggling to set up my hammock bivy-style on the ground for the first time, a quiet Israeli camped nearby came over and offered me a beer and a spare tent.  He brought his own tent to New Zealand, but the previous owners of his car gave him their cheapo tent as a freebie.  We chatted for a while - a nice antidote to the huge crowds – then I went to sleep early.  Listening to the rain start up again, I was glad not to be dependent on my dubious hammock skills to stay dry tonight.