Ben Lomond

The day after going over sugarloaf pass, Gemma was in town and up for a walk. I was undecided on what to do, but since I was in Queenstown and had not done a lot of walks in the area as I had always considered it an overcrowded, tourist riddled hellhole, though it might be time to try some of them out. One of the longer day walks there id the trip up to the summit of Ben Lomond and since the start of the track was right next to Gemmas hotel we decided to give that a go. I was soon regreeting it though as the track initially goes through a lot of really ugly douglas fir forest. It then opens out on to a very well worn track above the forest, but since sheep are grased on this land in the summer it is also pretty ugly. There were also quite a fer goats around to add to the ugliness. To make things worse it was cold with a lot of low cloud and we could not see anything, and I was starting to worry that I would be wasting Gemmas only free day in NZ by taking her on a horrifically ugly walk. Luckily though a bit higher up we broke through the clouds and were greeted with a lovely vista of mountains, which made it all worthwhile. It is so much nicer when you are on the top of the mountain with cloud below you and all you can see is other peaks sticking out.


Speargrass, a plant that lives up to it's name.


Schist


Above the clouds.


Bit chillier than Sydney, a lot prettier too.


The summit was a nice place to have lunch.


A friendly guest on top of the summit.




Filthy animals


Filthy trees