After a few weeks enjoy­ing life as a couch potato in the hostel lounge I grabbed the chance to go hik­ing with a couple of guys from my hostel room. I was gonna climb up Ben Lomond with Jack aka Clumsy Mon­key Boy, an Eng­lish­man, and Kevin, the ori­ginal Fly­ing Dutch­man. Now, Ben Lomond was Kevin’s choice and Jack and I just went along for the ride. I would have been quite happy strolling along the lake for a few hours, so Ben Lomond was like run­ning a mara­thon with no train­ing what­so­ever. Any­way, Benny Boy, as his friends call him, is right behind Queen­stown and towers about 1400 meters above it, his total height being around 1748 meters.

The day we left star­ted quite badly really. All of us were thrown out of our hostel. We were assured that we hadn’t done any­thing to war­rant that move, but we still have to be out by Sat­urday. Appar­ently long ter­mers make for an awful atmo­sphere. Bum­mer really, but it gave me lots to curse about when the going got tough on the moun­tain. The walk is advert­ised as being about 6 to 8 hours return from the top of Queen­stown Gon­dola. Add to that about 2 hours return to the Gon­dola and you end up with 8 to 10 hours alto­gether. We did it in 6.5 (includ­ing lots of breaks) from the hostel recep­tion to the refresh­ing jump into the icy lake at the end of the walk. That either shows that my fit­ness level is a lot higher than I thought it was or, what’s more likely, that the Kiwis are quite con­ser­vat­ive in their estimates.

The scenery was really stun­ning and the beer on the sum­mit the best I’ve ever had, even if it was out of a can. At points I was ready to give up, but a few well aimed curses helped me through that and it was well worth it in the end. It was an awe­some day and that just shows that the best things in life are for free, even in the money eat­ing city that is Queen­stown. Here are some images from the hike…