Roys Peak

Today all the other 4 girls left to go to Queenstown on the 9am bus, however Lauren and I stayed to climb Roys Peak. We got up after they left and got ready. We left around 10am and walked to the corner of the road alongside the lake. The mountain was a 10 minute drive away so we hitchhiked. We had a sign that said Roys peak and we were only waiting about 3 minutes before a Danish couple pulled up. We jumped in and they dropped us off at the car park at the bottom. They had done it the previous day and told us it took about 5 hours.

It was a real sunny day and there no clouds in the sky. Our bus driver the day before had said it was 6km so we weren't too bothered and the website I looked at had said the same. But when we got there there was a sign said that said 16km and we were fairly sure we were going to die. We didn't have much water but we set off anyway. It was really hard and very steep. We got very hot and sweaty. We got a decent way and got to some picnic benches were we stopped and took many photos. We then had the sandwiches we had made. At this point we decided that due to the severe lack of water and heat it was probably not sensible to continue to the top. We would have probably been really dehydrated and ended up with sunstroke.

The view from the picnic area we were at was still incredible and the walk back down also offered awesome views. It was really easy coming down. In fact it was easier to run it than walk as it was quite steep so that's what we did, jogged down the hill. We still didn't get as hot and sweaty as we did climbing up.

When we got down we had to wait about 5 minutes before someone else who had come down the hill behind us pulled over and gave us a lift back to Wanaka.  When we got back we got a drunk and sat and drank them by the lake. It's such a beautiful place. We watched people kayaking and paddle boarding for a bit before heading to the supermarket around 3pm to get something for dinner then back to the hostel for showers.