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Ben Lomond
queenstown, new zealand
Ben Lomond is steep, fairly long, and definitely worth it on a nice day. For us, it was a fantastic way to start off our time in Queenstown.
It’s possible to get the cable car up to skip the first section of climbing, but we decided to walk from the base as:
a) We like hiking
b) It cost $40
To the Gondola Station
Making our way up, we saw mountain bikers weaving through the trees, zip liners whizzing overhead, and paragliders soaring (and whooping) over Queenstown itself.
After about an hour of walking, we arrived at the source of all of this frenzied activity; the top of the gondola.
The view is great, and there’s enough going on to occupy you for the whole day if you wish,from a luge to paragliding, as well as a cafe to catch your breath in.
The view down to Queenstown from just below the cablecar station (ft paragliders)
Admiring the view from the bench at the saddle
To The Saddle
However, we decided to press on.
The track is well signed and led us up through a couple of woods, meeting a long and steady climb to the saddle with Ben Lomond slowly appearing on our left.
At the sign for the saddle, a number of people turned around, which is a masssive shame as about 100m past the sign you can look out across to an expansive range of black mountains with snow capped peaks.
There’s also a great bench to sit at, where we snacked on sandwiches and admired the view.
The climb to the peak of Ben Lomond is steeper and more challenging, but very much worth it!
Found the top!
Bit of traversing
Heading back down
The top and the way back
At the top, we met an Aussie who was taking a day trip from a yoga retreat at a vineyard – she’d decided to do a walk, while the rest of her group had decided to also take a break from the yoga, but to move onto the wine instead.
After taking in a gorgeous 360° panorama, we turned back down the way we came.
Most of the way back down to the top gondola station, we found a fork that took us down a slightly alternative route through a different set of mountain bike trails. We managed to find a small river running through a gorge, along with our first waterfall, and a very friendly tractor
The view from the top
Some of the moss in the woodland
Some moss in the sun
Made a friend in the woodland
Coming soon – fergurger photo
Refueling in Queenstown
To regain some calories, we made a beeline to Fergburger.
It deserves its reputation as one of the best places to eat in Queenstown. Although there was a queue, it moved quickly and we still had our food within half an hour of joining it. It’s good value for money, and the burgers are big! The only downside was that we stuffed ourselves with the burgers alone, and could barely made a dent in the chips.
We duly took them home, and didn’t eat them the next day because not matter how good the chips are originally, cold ones aren’t great.
In the following days, we also tried Ferbaker, and the ice-cream; we’d also highly recommend both of them, and in particular the Bailey’s ice cream.