Hey, everyone! This past week has gone by quickly and has honestly been a bit of a blur. The highlight of the week was certainly taking the bus down to Arrowtown last Sunday!

Arrowtown

Arrowtown is an historic gold mining community about 40min by bus from Queenstown. It has a country town vibe, with small one story buildings. I could easily picture cowboys kicking in swinging doors and ordering some grog. My parents would love it there – they like those kinds of towns.

As the bus pulled in, I was happy to see there were a lot of scenic spots nearby. The town hugs up against the river and mountains serve as a backdrop.

I didn’t have anything planned so I decided to go check out the visitor center. I talked to a nice lady who told me about some nearby hiking tracks. I decided to go do Tobin Track. Before doing so, I grabbed a veggie pie and spinach/feta roll from the store. FUEL.

Along the way, I saw all these little “chokers” as my dad likes to call them – it’s the seeds from trees that float around and give people awful allergies. The ground was absolutely covered with them. It looked like snow!

Tobin Track

I somehow misled myself into thinking the Tobin Track was only 15min long. It was not. After crossing a small bridge that went over the river, I was walking an incline the entire duration of Tobin Track. It wasn’t that bad. I was listening to music and doing my best to hide in the shade most of the way. It was a sunny day and I was trying to avoid sunburn. I tried my best but by the end of the day, my chest was a little red. The New Zealand sun is unforgivable – it’s easy to get color down here. I think it has to do with the weakened ozone layer.

Along the track, there were trees on either side of the trail during most of the incline. Occasionally, the foliage would open up and I could see the town below and the surrounding mountains. It was a beautiful view.

I was scratching my head thirty minutes in because I thought the trail was supposed to be much shorter. I continued on. Up, up, up.

Eventually, I made it to a plateau. There were sheep in a paddock several hundred meters away. They would “baa” every now and then. Two benches sat at the edge of the plateau. It was a great view of the area. In the distance, I could see Lake Whakatipu and some of the mountains closer to Queenstown.

A few other hikers came and went. One of them had a golden retriever who loved frolicking along. The look on the dog’s face – Daisy was her name – was so funny when she first noticed the sheep. She was like, “wait… what the hell are those?”

I was debating what to do. Should I go back down to get to a hiking trail with a gully? Or should I continue on? There was a large hill next up on the trail. It looked daunting but I was sure it would provide incredible views. I decided to continue along since it was still early in the afternoon.

Mt. Beetham Summit

If the Tobin Track was an incline the entire way, Mt. Beetham was even more so. The trail was like a staircase going up the side of the mountain. There were indentations in the ground for footsteps. I was glad it was a clear day – it would have been a slippery journey had there been rain.

I listened to music along the track and since I was the only person heading up to Mt. Beetham, I started to sing… as I do.

The incline wasn’t insanely treacherous but if I lost my footing, it would have certainly been a tumble. From the start of the summit track to the top was 900 meters which is I think 2,700 feet? It sounds more hectic than it was. I think it only took me 40min or something like that.

The views at the top were grand. There were some rocky outcrops that served as a nice place to sit for a while. I listened to music and soaked up the views. I’m glad I made it to the top. I wanted to see what the view looked like on the other side of the mountain. More of the same, but it was still beautiful. It was windy at the top. It reminded me of Iceland for some reason.

After some time, I began my descent. I wanted to check out Sawpit Gully before I left Arrowtown. It must have been 2pm by the time I made it back into town. I saw two interesting birds while in Arrowtown. I’m not sure what either of them are and I didn’t bring my nice camera with me. Hopefully, I’ll see them again and can share better pictures. For now, you can try to make out the blurs in the pictures below LOL.

Sawpit Gully

While pausing to rest my feet, I actually bumped into someone from one of my AA meetings. It was funny to see her outside of the meeting.

Soon after, I began my journey. I thought the trail was going to be mostly flat… but I was wrong! It was flat for a while, but as it got further along, it started to ascend higher and higher. There were some really neat views along the way and they were so different from those at Mt. Beedham. Where you could see the whole town below and Queenstown in the distance at Beedham, the views along Sawpit Gully were more intimate. It was like you could really only see these particular intricacies when immersed in the trail.

I was surprised to see a waterfall at one point. I wasn’t sure if it was a natural waterfall or some kind of man-made sewage tunnel situation-y thing. Regardless… it looked pretty haha.

I didn’t know how long the trail actually was going to take. It was supposed to loop around back to Arrowtown but the signing was unclear and it was getting later in the day at that point. I wanted to head back into town to chill out so I began heading back down.

I didn’t have to wait long for a bus and then just like that… I was on my way back to Queenstown.

I’ll certainly return to Arrowtown at some point. There were SO many hikes to do in the area. I’m really glad I ended up checking it out.

Miscellaneous

I have my OWN ROOM at the hostel for the next five weeks. I am covering for the hostel duty manager who is taking her holiday and having a private room is one of the perks. The day I moved in, I couldn’t stop smiling. It is so nice to have a space of my own for a little while. After thinking about it, I realized I haven’t truly had a space to myself since I moved out of Chicago in July of 2022. While I have had my own room at times (at Kory’s in Perth, by my parents in Michigan, etc.), I haven’t had a place where I am just completely alone if I want to be. I love it so much, I’ve considered just renting this room at its actual price once the manager gets back, but… it’s too expensive. The idea is to save money for traveling while I’m here, so I’d rather share a room. It’s mostly just for sleeping and watching shows anyway!

I am sure this role is going to be VERY interesting the next few weeks. My first full day alone, the water stopped working in the hostel. I was like, oh, I am NOT a plumber. Hahaha. But luckily I’m not alone in this and I was able to contact our maintenance team and get it figured out. One guy came to look at it and then he showed me what to do if it happens again. It happened again later that night and this time I knew what to do. It was kinda neat to be able to do that. Still, I think it was the universe christening me in the new role. “Good luck! Now, deal with the entire hostel not having running water!”

Someone else had dropped their key off the balcony and it had fallen onto the roof of the store below. Since we don’t have a ladder tall enough to get it from the ground, I asked him if he had a magnet. I suggested he could maybe connect the magnet to a rope and try to get his key that way. And it worked! As a thank you, he ended up buying me a chocolate bar which I devoured almost immediately haha.

I think there will be a lot of random, weird things like that the next five weeks.

And finally… last night, there was potential for some auroral activity so I went out to a dark spot and laid down by the beach. I listened to music and looked up at the stars. Almost right away, I saw these INCREDIBLE meteors shoot across the sky. It looked like a bunch of three or four meteors shooting by at once. It was really cool. I saw a few other, smaller comets. I kept my eyes peeled for the aurora but didn’t see it. At times, it seemed like there was a soft glow behind the mountains but no beams or anything very obvious. I decided to snap a couple of long exposure pictures throughout the night, just in case. After enhancing them this morning, I was able to pick up on some slight pink/orange diffuse. So it was there! Just not really noticeable to the naked eye and no beams. It’s cool that even though there isn’t always a massive show like the other week, there is often a faint glow low on the horizon.

There was just an X-class flare that should be hitting the earth in a few days. X-class is the strongest subclass of solar flares and there hasn’t been one this strong since 2017. Fingers crossed that it reaches earth while it’s dark out and that there are clear skies. It would be really neat to see that!

At one point, Starman by David Bowie came on shuffle. It was cute to be laying on the beach in the dark looking up at the stars and for such a song to come on randomly. Love you, David Bowie!

Art of the Week

Continuing on… I don’t even know if I should write anything in this section anymore haha. I feel like I never know what to say. How about this: THIS IS A DRAWING I DID. How’s that? Haha.

Reflections

Things are good! It feels a little bit like Groundhog Day here in Queenstown. If I’m not doing anything in particular or getting out of town at all, it feels like the same shit every day. It’s SUCH a small town. But that’s okay! It’s providing me the space I need to work on my creative endeavors like artwork and writing. And there are plenty of activities and things to see when I feel like venturing outside of town. There are a number of things I still haven’t done in town yet. I want to go up the gondola and then do the Ben Lomond hike one day. I want to go to Glenorchy. I want to do a bunch of the adventure activities – skydiving, parasailing, the shotover jet boats, etc. There is time to do all this stuff and I’m not in a rush.

I can’t believe Christmas is almost here. It doesn’t really feel like it at all. There aren’t Christmas lights up in the city, no Christmas trees… but I did see some ornaments in Queenstown Gardens the other day which was cute!

I was going to go to Arthur’s Point or maybe Glenorchy today but I decided to just have a slow day instead. I might go to Arthur’s Point tomorrow. I don’t know. I am going to hang out with my Canadian friend tonight and go stargazing, I think. He and I are supposed to go camping down near Dunedin next weekend.

Other than that, I suppose I’m just playing things by ear a little.

We’ll see. Stay tuned!

Until next time, I’m sending you all my love. xx