Day 132: Roses Hut to Queenstown (2625-2676)

Monday, April 10

I left Roses Hut around 8, before Jeremy. He hikes a lot faster than I do and I wanted to get to Arrowtown early enough to catch the bus to Queenstown.

After following the trail, I followed the river to Macetown as soon as I could. The hut books had said the river was easier than the trail.

Jeremy caught up to me shortly after I got in the river. He had tried a bit of trail before getting in the river and said the river was easier.

The water was always lower than my knees so it wasn't a problem. And it was pretty easy to move from rock bank to rock bank.

Jeremy went off to explore at some point, so we got to Macetown at the same time and we ate lunch by the rebuilt bakery. Some cyclists showed up and we talked with them. They were turning around here to head back to Arrowtown.

I started walking while Jeremy finished his lunch. Macetown was pretty neat. It's an old abandoned town but the DOC (or someone else) has restored a lot of the buildings. There are lots of information placards and it's fun to look inside the buildings. Most of them have nothing inside, but it's interesting to see how they're made. There was also a campground at Macetown with a drop toilet. If it had worked out to camp here without wasting half a day, it would be a nice place to camp.

The bikers passed me and I got off the gravel road out of Macetown to follow the trail over Big Hill. There were beautiful views the whole way. It was a little swampy getting up to Big Hill Saddle, but from there I could start to see Arrowtown.

The walk down to Arrowtown was easy, through tussock and forest. It was a cute town with lots of tourists taking photos of the fall trees. Arrowtown is know for its trees in the fall. There are very few native New Zealand trees that turn colors in the fall, so the ones in Arrowtown are probably non-native.

As I walked through town I got ice cream and talked to nice people at the I-site. They pointed me in the right direction to catch the bus and I talked to Marjolein on my phone while I waited. She was biking around the country now and was pretty excited to see Beauty and the Beast. I'm sure I'll go see it while I'm in Queenstown.

I listened to some phone messages and found out my debit card had been used in Alaska. I have no idea how that happened because it was on me and the purchases all were at places I recognized in Fairbanks. The purchases had to have been made in person.

The bus came and it took about an hour to get to Frankton. In Frankton I caught a bus to Queenstown. It got in around 7 and dropped people off right outside a food court. I was really hungry so I got some Thai fried rice and dumplings.

Once my belly was full and happy I walked to the hostel. I had made a reservation for the next few days at the Lakeside YHA. I had to walk through most of the downtown area of Queenstown to get there. It was so weird to see a town so busy and with so many shops open after dark. Since it was getting dark early, it wasn't really that late, but I hadn't really seen a town this big since I had been in Christchurch with Sam and Lauren. I think it was the biggest town on the trail since Wellington.

After I checked in, I showered, did my laundry, and went to bed.