The scenic beauty of Queenstown
Good morning Queenstown. Well, hello snow. It’s day 310 of my round the world trip and I feel cold.
It’s kind of ironic. I wanted to escape from the winter in Europe and here I am where the winter is around the corner. I wasn’t planning on coming here. New Zealand sort of happened. It’s the first country where I didn’t pin any places to visit on the map. The idea was to go north from Christchurch where I arrived. But I ended up going south.
When I started hitchhiking yesterday it was kind of late and I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go. The girl that picked me up recognized me as she worked in the hostel I was staying at. She was going to Christchurch. One of my options. It would be in line with the idea of going north. I was still thinking as we were driving whether to get off once we reached the highway.
And I actually did. I reckoned I might try going south. I was either going to stay in Twizel for the night or try hitching a ride to Wanaka or Queenstown. It would depend where the drivers would be headed. And so about 20 or 30 minutes before it got dark (it was really late for hitchhiking) a camper van stopped with some folks from Sri Lanka. They were going to Queenstown. And from that moment so was I.
It was raining and snowing when I arrived. And so cold. I woke up today only to find snow all around. I’ve got no winter shoes. Nor a winter jacket. I just make use of my onion style approach. Five layers waist up. Two layers waist down. Good that I took a scarf, a beanie and gloves.
And so New Zealand is the country where I have planned the least if at all. Plans are literally made as minutes pass. The best thing is I found a great host here. Last minute! Incredible!