Day 57 Queenstown Hill Hike

So after the day of my bungee jump, Queenstown needed to be explored.  My buddies Jesse and Cecilia and I decided to rent a three person bike to check out the entire town for a few hours.  There were paths all along the city so we decided to make our own tour of Queenstown.

The major path we followed went along the lake.  We went in both directions of where our backpackers inn was.  This picture was taken going south of  our building.  

This was another spot we made in the northern direction of our location.  Just beautiful scenary all around and blue water.

After a morning of biking any normal person would be hungry.  Therefore we decided to have the New Zealand famous Fergburger which lived up to it's name as a must-east on any vacation to New Zealand.  2.2 pounds of NZ free range cattle beef with alvoli sauce or however you spell it with barbaque.  MMMMMmmmmm Tasty! And that was our view of the docks as we ate.

But the exercise didn't stop there.  It was time to hike the mountain.  I took this picture as a reference point to compare to as we got higher up the mountain.  The town looks pretty big from where I am at right now.  In the following pictures you'll see how small it really is.

 The reason I put up signs on this blog is for my own memory bank haha.  The sign on the stone was an interesting little memo that actually works if you take it seriously Hopefully it's readable.

A rather epic entrance to the mountain trail and a quite beautiful piece of sculpture.  They really love their nature down here.

The forest we traversed through was dark.  I mean dark.  I took this photo with the flash on and it still came out like this.  I didn't think forests could be this thick haha that it literally seemed like dusk rather than around 1 oclock in the afternoon.  To prove my point look below.  In retrospect I also think the mountain provided a shield from some of the sun's rays somehow that added to the darkness. 

This was the first lookout point we got to.  The town in the background is not Queenstown but rather another small town off in the distance.  We couldn't see Queenstown from this lookout.

I am sure you are all wondering why I climbed a tree on the side of a mountain.  Well, Jesse and I somehow got onto the topic of who was the better mountaineer.  So we decided to have a tree climbing competition. I believe I won but I will let you decide.

Well, in all our exploring we somehow meandered into some sheep. Wild ones too!  So we decided to get to the top of the mountain we would follow their trails rather than the designated ones.  Life is so much more interesting when you don't follow the pre-made path.  MAKE YOUR OWN CHOICES HAHA

This is where the sheep trails took us.  Boy...was I happy we followed them.  Their grazing had made it pretty easy to follow.  I like this photo, just look at that background! 

Remember that picture of the town I took? How big those houses were and stuff.  Well look at it now.  Tiny tiny tiny.

A panaramic video, just to show you guys what the view looked like from the top.  It was a pretty gratifying moment to have made it and the fact that it was a beautiful day made it all the better.

Once there we sat back and took in the sunset.  All those white little dots are houses.  Look how the cloud is just chilling over top of the mountain.  Simply spectacular.

 I would also like to add that this road leads to the valleys that have no civilization what so ever.  This was one spot where part of the Lord of the Rings Triology was filmed.  Pretty cool.  It was a fun day all around!