Queenstown (2), 24.10.08

I hate to repeat myself but Queenstown is awesome :-) And actually I didn’t expect it to be. I knew that it is a favorite city of many people, but because it is known mainly for its extreme activities, I imagined it to have vibes that I don’t like, however it turned out to be a lovely lovely lovely town. Ophir said she wants to live here. It is a bit similar to Wanaka but even nicer. Just as in Wanaka we decided to stay here four nights. Ophir is writing about two of the highlights we have had here.

Anyways, it has been quite a while that we’ve been thinking of taking a track the whole family and staying the night in a hut. We chose the Routeburn track because the first part is relatively easy for kids and a beautiful walk. We organized 4 bags (Shira couldn’t carry one) with 5 sleeping bags, stove, food, water, books and few games. We climbed up the hill a couple of hours. It wasn’t easy for the kids to carry heavy bags, but we were all in a good mood and were pretty excited. The hut was very basic – 2 rooms with 10 bank beds in each, a bigger room that serves as a living room with huge tables, benches and a fire place, and a small kitchen. No electricity, no stove, only running water. This hut belongs to the DOC (Department of Conservation) and the season has not started yet, thus it was not fully working. The location however seemed to be taken from a movie - a flat field, a river crossing 20 meters in front, all surrounded by mountains covered with snow.
As we arrived early we had plenty of time to walk around, play games, take a nap, read books and enjoy the place. Many people visited the hut during daytime, but apart from one who stayed the night, they all went back or continued to the next hut. Luckily the guy who did stay the night at the hut was once a fire fighter and managed to lit the fire place (It was damned hard as the woods were all wet.) I said luckily because the place was freezing at night and it could keep us warm for few hours. We actually pulled the mattresses from the room and fixed them right next to the fire place to warm ourselves up. It didn’t help for too long and I was freezing all night (as well as Ido & Amit). The girls for some unknown reasons remained warm. In the morning the whole field outside was filled with a layer of frost. It was that cold at night :-(

We were all very proud that we managed to have such an adventure, and after walking back to Rebecca, the rest of the day we were just relaxing and doing nothing. On the way back to Queenstown, we found a beautiful spot to picnic for lunch and just to lie in the sun and read. In the town itself we spoilt ourselves again with ice cream, coffees and even hamburgers. We deserved it!!!