Write Your Story – Queenstown Hill, New Zealand

We spent the night south of Queenstown at the abandoned Fairlight Railway Station (the one campsite we have seen twice). In the morning we took our time getting ready and having our bible time. It was nice to have a relaxing morning with no major driving needed to get to the next thing. We made our way into town and decided to hike the Queenstown Hill for a couple hours. This would allow us to check into our only hotel on the trip as soon as the room would be available. Sydney was so excited to skype with the family and with the time change we needed to be online as early as possible.

The Queenstown Hill turned out to be an incredibly steep and beautiful hike through a fir tree forest, thus we dubbed the hike “The Grand Fir-nally” for our South Island tour. Along the route we also went through Cairn Corner, as there were numerous cairns scattered around the trail. At the top, we enjoyed majestic views of Queenstown and the lake below. Also getting to see the Basket of Dreams, which was created by an artist in the area and looked like one of the fire beacons that Pippin lite in the Lord of the Rings.

After our hike we made got to the hotel and throughly enjoyed our time catching up with our family. We have not been able to touch base with them since entering New Zealand, so it was nice to let them know all was well.

Sydney’s Take: I like Fairlight Railway camp, because I got to climb a tree. The hike in Queenstown was long. Daddy got cold, because once you entered the forest there was not any sun in there and the temperature was much lower. I wanted to go to a different hike, one with a gondola, but it would have taken longer to do and I wanted to talk with my brother and sister’s back home more than hike further. I was so glad to get to the hotel. The bed was sooooo comfortable. It was a king size bed and I slept on all of it! I slept in each corner, on daddy, on the side table, on the end of the bed, on the top of the bed. Wow, did I get a great night sleep (daddy, not so much). Daddy said it was like he was in a washing machine on the spin cycle with me twirling all about in my sleep. I thought that was so funny!