So last night we ended up sitting next to Todd and Maria at the Thai restaurant. As soon as we sat down Todd said something that I didn’t quite catch but included I’m apologizing for being Canadian. Looking back I think they might’ve been apologizing that they were going to talk to us because they’re Canadian. Either way, we ended up talking to them for some time throughout dinner and telling them about our journey until eventually they asked our names and left. When we went to pay the waitress informed us that they’d picked up our tab while we’d been eating! We were very grateful for their generosity and will have to find a way to pay it forward in the future.

We had an early start this morning to try and get to Queenstown nice and early. It would be an easy track but still a good 30km to cover.

The track took us out of Arrowtown and round past a golf course and through some residential neighborhoods. It was an easy and pleasant walk although we got the feeling some of the locals weren’t overly happy to see us. With the exception of one person, who had kindly put a free apple basket at the end of their drive.

Enjoying our apples we continued on around Lake Hayes and towards the Lower Shotover. The walk was pleasant and easy going and we had no trouble moving pretty fast through this section.

Once across the Lower Shotover we started to enter industrial territory and were passing a lot of commercial and industrial businesses. Similar to Auckland, the TA clearly wants us to experience New Zealand’s sewage works, as we passed right by the Queenstown sewage treatment plant. We did immediately notice how busy everything felt, even before hitting town, there were planes, helicopters, cars, trucks, and people everywhere and all moving around. It was quite overwhelming.

Eventually we got down to the Lake Wakatipu shoreline which we would follow round to Queenstown. We stopped here for a quick break and I took my shoe off to get stone out. To my shock I found a hole in my sock and a blister on the back of my heel. I hadn’t felt anything and had only had these socks for three days so it was quite disappointing. I bandaged up and we continued for the last two hours round to Queenstown.

Queenstown was as packed as expected but the restaurant choices are a nice trade-off. We grabbed a burger and nachos for lunch and then headed back to the hostel to drop off our packs. We had the whole afternoon to chill and headed back out to take in the town. We were able to get a free replacement for my socks at the outdoor store. Icebreaker let’s you trade in any of their socks, without receipt and dirty, if they get a hole. We walked past the ever-packed Fergburger and decided we were too impatient to wait in line. We had a huge Indian for dinner and Patagonia chocolate ice cream for dessert which put Heather over the edge a bit. It was a slow waddle back to the hostel.