1/3/2012

I stayed at the Ivory Towers backpackers for two nights. It wasn’t the best place I’d stayed in because the window in my room wouldn’t close properly, which to me, wasn’t very security conscious of the owners. They weren’t bothered by it though and said that anyone who wanted to break in, would need a ladder to climb up into it. I wasn’t staying here for too long anyway as I was on my way to Queenstown. I had to decide first whether I was going to go to Glenorchy or not.

So I spent the morning making phonecalls to organise the next part of the trip. I was looking at the accommodation on offer in Glenorchy and called one or two hostels there. I plumped for the Kinloch Lodge, at the tip of Lake Wakatipu. It looks so nice on the internet and it had a good review in the Rough Guide. I knew it was going to be expensive but I thought “what the hell, I’ll splash out for once”. The guy on reception, booked me a room for 114 NZD for the first night and 79 NZD for the second, which wasn’t a bad deal.

Then I had to call Queenstown Information Centre, who provide shuttle buses for walkers who want to do the Routeburn Track, which is a short distance from Glenorchy. I still had to make my way somehow to Kinloch Lodge, which is then another 25 km further north. But on the day I wanted to go to Kinloch, there was no one heading to the tracks, so I had to ask Kinloch Lodge to pick me up from Glenorchy.

I also booked my accommodation for Queenstown and the Lord of The Rings Glenorchy tour with Nomad Safaris for 165 NZD. After all of that, I headed off to Lake Matheson. I’d been to the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers before and had done the walk to the Franz Josef Glacier and the helicopter flight around Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman so I wanted to do something a little different this time.