We were on a multi-city loop trip that went from Brisbane to Sydney, to Auckland and then Wellington, and we were just starting our descent into Queenstown when we saw this out the window of the plane. In case it's not clear, what you're looking at is the top of a snow-covered mountain poking out through a sea of clouds.
Queenstown is on the South Island of New Zealand, towards the bottom left (or South West) corner of this tree-covered island. The town itself is arranged around the lake you see in this photo behind us. It's called Lake Wakatipu and to say it's gorgeous would be a good start.
The town is an entry point to ski fields in winter and multi-day hikes in summer. Tourism is the focal point of its economy and as such the town is filled with shops and places for tourists (like us) to spend our money when we weren't up a mountain.
Some of the shops face into the mall like in the last photo and several others face the lake. When the weather is nice, like it was while we were there, you'll find people walking along the lovely boardwalk between the shops and the lake all day long. It's easy to see why this spot is so appealing. It's beautiful, hey?
Next to one section of this boardwalk was a beach. You could stand on the wooden boards and look over a big stone wall and see this: ducks and the occasional seagull, having a grand old time hanging out in the clear water. I think they must be fed a lot by tourists as they were way too tame for wild animals.
But it was lovely to be able to sit down near the edge and have them just sit close by, snoozing or sunning themselves, without them getting spooked by us the way ducks usually do when a human gets close to them.
There was a lot happening on the lake. It's not just home for ducks and other water birds but there were steamboats and speedy boats and jet ski rides and all manner of on-water, tourist-focused transportation. Brad loves seeing this stuff. Personally, I love the ducks more but since he's a tradie (i.e. a tradesperson who builds stuff for a living) I think he really loves seeing anything that's been built by humans.
We couldn't get enough of this lake!
We admired it from the town centre.
We walked around it one way and then the other, appreciating it from every angle we could get to easily.
We looked up close and could see how ridiculously, beautifully clear it was.
And it wasn't just that the lake was so clean or even that it was so big, it was that it was framed by mountains in almost every single direction.
But the lake was just one of the things we loved about Queenstown. We also loved the ginormously huge trees. I was hugging this tree only moments before this photo but we needed some perspective to show you just how big this tree is.
There were a few of these in town. They're not native to New Zealand but I love them anyway. It makes me want to go to California and see more of these Sequoia in their native landscape.
In the middle of town, there was also this green space that looked like a peaceful place for people to gather and eat their takeaway food.
It looked like a well-thought-out, well-maintained little spot and it was quite pretty with the water running through the middle. No wonder people like to sit there.
There were also some heritage sites with historic relevance. The signboard talked about how and when Queenstown was established as a town. Brad digs the history of any place we visit. I usually let him go visit anything he wants and capture anything that's important to him while I stare at the gorgeous trees or birds or just people-watch. For some reason, I love the 'now' moment much more than the past. But we're all different, right?
Before I tell you more about the natural beauty of Queenstown I have to share with you the local restaurant that is literally an institution in this town: Fergburger. Brad had been mentioning it to me ever since he first told me stories about his skiing in Queenstown. Since then, every conversation about this town included some reference to Fergburger.
As the name suggests, the restaurant sells burgers. There's a good range of options, including a couple of vegetarian options and I was able to get a gluten-free bun for mine. At home, we regularly eat gluten-free vegan burgers from Grill'd and I'd say this was almost as tasty and a good chunk cheaper. The only challenge? There's a line out the door and around the corner from the moment they open each day.
When one eats one must remember to move their body! Thankfully, that's easy to do in Queenstown, especially since we love parkrun. Queenstown's parkrun was one of the reasons we'd picked this town over a smaller town deeper into the wilds because we could still keep up our usual Saturday morning routine.
Queenstown parkrun is held entirely within the Queenstown Gardens. As you can see from the map, the gardens are surrounded by the lake and since the parkrun course runs alongside the lake it makes it a spectacular parkrun. In fact, of the 132 different parkruns I've visited, Queenstown parkrun is now my favourite because it's that beautiful.
The course ran along a packed gravel path the whole way. The first and last bit were through the mowed-lawn areas with beds of pretty flowers on the side. Like this one! It was like an oversized rose. I'd never seen anything like it before and I loved it so much it made me teary!
Then we ran through this pine forest before heading out to the out-and-back section alongside the lake.
In several places throughout the gardens were these frisbee goals. I had no idea what they were but Brad seemed fascinated by them. They allow people to play a different kind of frisbee game where instead of just throwing the frisbee to each other they try and get it in the goal.
During the parkrun we passed many beautiful trees like this one. Not that I was really appreciating them fully while trying my best to run really fast. Haha! But we did end up walking through the Queenstown Gardens several times while we were in town because they were so close to our accommodation. And we loved them. For a green space, it was pretty awesome and I would highly recommend you have a walk through it if ever you go to Queenstown.
You might even jump for joy as this little fella did :P
The last cool thing I want to show you from these gardens is this. This is designed to hold up a tree branch. I've seen them in Brisbane, where we live, near some of the gigantic trees with low-hanging branches but never one that was genuinely beautiful. I think they're designed to keep the branch high enough that it deters humans from climbing them and either hurting the tree or themselves. I love that someone actually thought to make this "branch stand" beautiful and not just functional.
Now, what I haven't mentioned so far is the actual place we stayed. It was cold outside and so everything we did saw us in a lot of layers. And it was a total blessing to have this beautiful, spacious apartment so close to town. It wasn't cheap but then nothing in this town is; I think Queenstown might be the most expensive place to visit in the whole country. Lucky it's gorgeous ;) Evidenced by the photo below, which was taken from our bedroom.
See, at this point, you've seen the gorgeous lake. You've heard about the gardens that we loved. You've learned why we loved the parkrun so much. And you've seen the place we got to sleep, rest and recover. But there was one more thing that made us fall totally in love with Queenstown: a mountain called Ben Lomond. While you can't see Ben Lomond in this photo it is somewhere in that direction, well beyond the top of that hill-that's-so-steep-most-people-ride-the-gondola-up.
I'll probably write an entire post at some point about our hike up and down Ben Lomond as it was incredible and deserves its own story. But for now, here's a taste. This was the sort of terrain we were walking up (and run-walking down). This is the back of Brad, ahead and above me on the path. And that's Ben Lomond, off to the left, just out of shot.
And another photo, this time of us, perhaps an hour further up the hill with the top of Ben Lomond in the background and finally in our sights. From this point (which I think is called "The Saddle", where the maintained track gives way to a goat track) it was about another hour of steep, difficult, windy climbing. It was difficult and I had to rest for a minute or two every 10 minutes or so, but it was so worth it. Totally beautiful, totally amazing. You can read more about Ben Lomond via Brad's post that you'll find here.
I'll leave you with a few more beautiful photos to round out this post. This was a painted sign that I adored and made Brad photograph for me :P
Tahuna is the local Maori name for Queenstown. Its painted sign was also totally awesome and I wish there had been an easy way to show you a series of six photos side-by-side to do this one justice.
Second last photo but by no means the end of the beauty that Queenstown displays, this one is of the Remarkables, a set of mountains that contain one of the two local ski fields. Even though it was almost summer when we were there, there were still some pockets of snow on top.
And because it was still late Spring, it meant there were babies everywhere! I love it when we get to see ducklings. They're so cute!!
And that's it, folks! Most photos in this series were taken by Brad, aka 
Hive account@new.things and used with his explicit permission. The photo of the clear water and close-up rocks, the oversized pink rose and the back of Brad as he hiked up the very long steep hill to Ben Lomond were taken by me. You can thank Brad for the rest of them ;)
