New Zealand 2017 Day 7: Queenstown and Glenorchy

I surprisingly slept well on the cruise. I think I was just extremely tired from the early morning, so I fell right asleep by 10pm.

Breakfast was served starting at 7am (early!) and we cruised a bit more. We headed toward the Tasman Sea.  The water started getting a bit more choppy and I started to feel a little queasy at this point.

It was a pretty quick morning...passed a large waterfall and next thing I knew we had to pack up and get ready to leave.  We got back to the visitor center right at 9:15am.

As per instruction, I called Glenorchy Air to confirm my flight.  It was a gorgeous sunny day, so I didn't see why the flight wouldn't happen.  I was told to be at the airport by 10:45am, and that the only female pilot would be taking me.  How awesome!  There was a shuttle bus station right outside the visitor center, so that saved me a 15 minute walk with my large backpack.

At the airport, I waited until after 11:10am or so.  Turns out the female pilot swapped me out for some other folks...so my pilot was coming on the shuttle shortly.  

Planes at the Miford Sound Airport

There were seven total passengers on the small plane.  It was the first time I wore headphones on a plane.  Really cool experience.  We flew through Milford Sound and saw everything from above. The North, Middle, and South fjords were pretty from up high.  I couldn't believe the amazing views from up here.  Fangorn Forest was also filmed here.

Incredible views from the plane

Blurry photo of me feeling nauseous

It was a rocky ride. I was really nauseated so that was unfortunate. Incredible experience, but I was really out of it. We arrived at the Queenstown airport around 12pm, which beats having to wait at Milford Sound until 2:30pm to take the four hour bus ride back to Queenstown.  The pilot ended up providing us all a ride to our Queenstown destinations.

I got dropped off in the central area, and decided to give the popular Fergburger a try. Yes despite its long wait.  From the initial line to receiving my food was probably half an hour. It was a delicious burger!

Original Fergburger.  Yum.

Next door was Omega car rental, so I picked up my car. I was worried it'd be hard to navigate a small car, but the Toyota Corolla I got was a hatchback that was actually a good size. It was definitely older than the car I got at Budget, but that's ok. There were even spider webs in it.

Drove to my Airbnb to check in and rest.  I was still off from the plane ride and needed my motion sickness to calm down. I ended up napping and resting until about 4pm.

A short walk sounded like a good idea, so I drove to Glenorchy. What an incredible drive. You are hugging Lake Wakatipu the entire time.  I stopped at Bennett's Bluff for some photos.

Stunning view from Bennett's Bluff on the way to Glenorchy.  Beautiful turquoise waters of Lake Wakatipu.

A short section of the Routeburn track seemed like a good idea so I started at the Routeburn Shelter car park.  It was a gravel road and then secluded forest road for a long stretch, but my car made it okay.

I wanted to reach the Routeburn Flats Hut and then turn back around. For some reason, I didn't comprehend that the estimated time of 1.5-2 hours was one way.  I think I was too excited to start hiking and checking out this Great Walk.  I began hiking at 5:53pm which is definitely too late to start a three hour walk since it gets dark and I needed to drive safely back to Queenstown.  I wasn't really thinking and assumed it would just take 1.5 hours total. Oops.

But anyways, I loved the trail.  It was so well maintained, flat, and you are walking next to a beautiful crystal-clear Route Burn river for majority of the time.  It was really tranquil during the walk, and it was completely dry and not too rocky.  Really enjoyable experience, minus the running short on time...as I was heading back from the Flats Hut, I had to do quite a bit of trail running. Which actually was fine, I needed the jog and the trail was the perfect condition for running.

Flat, great-conditioned Routeburn Track

Overall, I spent around 2h 45min for the out and back.  The first half of my drive back was fine because it was dusk and the moon and sky was still bright. It was actually quite beautiful to see the lake and mountains in this light.  But then it eventually was just black with no streetlights...so driving the windy road along the lake was slow going and I was one of the few cars doing so.

I didn't eat dinner so I had to stop at the grocery store in town first. By the time I got back, it was nearly 11pm.  A little late...

Tiring day, but glad I got to experience part of the Routeburn track and see the amazing route from Queenstown to Glenorchy.

View from Routeburn Flats Hut