The mountains changed again on the way to Queenstown. They became much rockier and their sides looked scratched and beaten up.
Upon arrival in Queenstown, I'm greeted by a beautiful long lake, Lake Wakatipu, bigger and less calm than the one in Wanaka. With mountains all around.
I didn't get a chance to get to high ground here, but I heard there wasn't really a good all-encompassing view, even from the "gondola" - that's what they call the chair lift that goes to the top of the mountain. I was going to take a ride on it, but then I realized the weather was meant to turn cold soon.
Sure enough, the rain and wind moved in about 30 minutes later. Queenstown changed from a sunny, bustling village to a stormy retreat. It was actually really cool to watch the storm overtake the city and the lake-from the window, of course. I wouldn't want to have been on the gondola. Always a good thing to check the weather report so as to avoid unpleasant experiences.
Queenstown was much smaller than I imagined. I thought it would be like Wellington, but actually it's only twice the size of Wanaka, with more people and activity on the streets, but still the feel of a village. Very nice really.
The bad thing about this town was really the hostel. Really only the guy staying in the bunk below me. Holy smelly feet! And he doesn't seem to have any consciousness about how much they smell. He's not washing his feet or covering up his shoes. Ugh!
And the thing about "smelly feet" smell, you don't get used to it. It just keeps smelling bad. To attempt to combat it, I pulled out my Rotorua mud, which I bought as a sort of ben-gay for my muscles, and I put it all over my back and let the menthol smell fill up the room. Before, when I used this in Wanaka, I was a bit embarrassed of the smell, but this time I was hoping it would really stink up the place. Unfortunately, it only worked about five minutes. Aaargh!
When I actually hopped into my bunk it was worse!! The smell was just hanging in the air up there. Uggh! I hardly slept a wink. And I'm sure a lot of that was the horrible smell.
Glad I'm out of there. And now on to Te Anau, my last stop in New Zealand. Only sorry I missed the gondola ride. :-)
