This was the first day of our holiday in the South Island. We arrived in Queenstown in the morning with the usual great views from the plane during the approach. Picking up our campervan we made our way through a very busy Queenstown (marathon day) and parked up at the bottom of the hike up to Ben Lomond.
It was 11:30 by the time we started and it was very hot with perfect, clear skies. The bottom section of the walk was through forest and was quite technical and steep, although the shade was very welcome. As we made it up and out of the forest we were rewarded with great views back over Lake Wakatipu and continued on to the saddle.
The track from the saddle to the summit was even steeper and more technical but the views from the top were stunning.
It was a relief to begin descending as we finally managed to cool down. Gemma was a bit unsure of her footing in places and kept grabbing onto these prickly plants for support.
Walking back down through the forest was good fun. At the bottom we cooled off by paddling in the lake and then headed over to Wanaka, where we stayed at the Lake Outlet Holiday Park.
