🇳🇿 New Zealand, Queenstown - Ben Lomond Summit Hike + Luge

Even when we were planning for the trip, N has already been mentally prepping me for this hike in Queenstown. I didn't think much of it until we started hiking in the first leg of the trip and he told me those were easy in comparison. Yikes.......

The Ben Lomond trial starts near where the Queenstown Luge is. There is an option to start all the way from ground level up (+1 hour one way to the journey), but we decided to take the Gondola up before commencing. With that, the journey will take 3 hours one way.

Took this photo at the start and sent it to my SIL and told her to find a way to save us if she doesn't hear from us in 6 hours lol.

I regretted agreeing to this 😭 We were constantly going uphill, and it would've been that way for 3 hours straight until we hit the summit.

But... 1 hour + into the trek up we noticed snow from a distance and reached a point where entire pathway was filled with snow. We could've pushed on but our shoes were not designed for snow terrain and the last thing I want is to slip down a mountain. Who's gonna look after our cats!?

Was I secretly relieved inside? Maybe...

We just snapped a photo and made our way back down ahead of schedule.

No tripod, no problem lol.

We were 4 hours early ahead of our original plan since we turned back early. The plan was to go for some luge rides after the hike. On hindsight if we did complete the full 6h walk, I think we might've given up on the luge.