Saturday in Queenstown: Insult to injury.

Friday evening (after much hurried, last-minute packing and a hurried job of finishing my Plant Pathology virus profile) saw me, Steph's cousin Kim, and our fellow ArcadiaNZ Sam and Kendall all packed into a little rented sedan and rolling away into the Central Otago mountains. We stopped to hunt for dinner, endured our turns in the middle seat, wondered if we were there yet, and eventually arrived about 9 PM in a cloud-shrouded Queenstown. (On the way, we'd driven out from under Dunedin's clouds and seen the moon for the first time in weeks. Leaving its achingly bright shine almost hurt after so long in the rain.) We checked into our hostel, an aggressively edgy budget place clearly catering to adventurous youth, made a few inquiries regarding the next day's activities, and split up. Kim, Steph, and I went to bed; Sam and Kendall went to town for a while.

I was the last to leave in the morning: Steph, Sam and Kendall caught the early bus to the ski slopes, and Kim had an early bungee jump booked. I rose, breakfasted, and looked out the window... to see centimeter-wide puffs of white pattering onto the sidewalk. It was snowing! That's the first snowfall I've seen in NZ, even on the glacier, and here it is October. Heh.

The local DOC office was able to suggest a few trails leading from town up into native forest, though they counseled me to avoid the alpine tussock as its trails vanish under snow. I picked one that sounded appealing, geared up, and struck out for the trailhead. The streets were lined with reminders of how late a snow it was: cherry trees' blossoms bowed under the wet weight, lemonwood flowers unable to loose their usual tangy-cloying scent in the cold. Gouts of slush plopped off the power lines into puddles. Really, it was more sleet or slush than snow... I was quite glad of my raincoat.

The trailhead was easy enough to find, and the trail led me a merry line across and up the steep slopes behind town. Wilding pine woods draped gracefully in white belied their beauty by dropping the occasional branchful of snow into my hat. (Admittedly, the occasional Nothofagus was worse: those dripped constantly.) I hiked up past the lower entrance to the local mountain-bike terrain park, then past the turn-off for Fernhill suburb... and then to the upper entrance of the terrain park. The trail led downhill from there, back through the park... to rejoin the way I'd come up?! The dratted access trail was leading me in circles. I'd been watching carefully for turn-offs all the way up, and none had been visible. Neither was anything clear from the map I'd bought. To make matters worse, the snow was turning slowly but surely to rain, even as I could swear it was getting colder.

I'd had enough at that point. I turned down through the terrain park to rejoin the trail. On the way down, I finally found a turn-off -- not the one I wanted, but it was a more interesting route back into town. It led me down several steep flights of wooden stairs to an old hydroelectric power plant, the first in the area, no longer working but restored for historic value. The wilding pines gave way to native bush, too, which was nice. At the bottom of the valley I found Lake Wakatipu again, and just followed the coastline back into town.

On the way in, I stopped on the Lake Esplanade a few times (sheltered by the coast's willows) to admire the view. Queenstown sits on the edge of Lake Wakatipu, a deep, long, Z-shaped mountain lake whose banks slope with little fanfare straight up into jagged mountains. Suffice it to say that even in the rain, the views were spectacular. Without the hike, I had the rest of the day... when the rain eased off and even stopped, I scampered back to the hotel to grab my paints.

No sooner had I gotten started, of course, than the rain swept back with a vengeance. Damp, cold, annoyed, and quite sure that I just wasn't going to get out today, I slunk back into town. On the waterfront I found a nice, if expensive, cafe. The place was actually dedicated to chocolate--they had some very interesting varieties, and a lot of gelato, alongside their hot chocolate and coffee offerings. I settled in to nurse a pot of unusual tea, admire the view, and finish the painting. That ate up a few pleasant, warm hours, even if the watercolors' results weren't much.

Afterwards I went back out to town, wandering the streets of the shopping district. I came to the conclusion that Queenstown contains X types of shops: souvenir shops (expensive), clothing shops (expensive), cafes and restaurants (expensive), outdoor gear shops (reasonable, but not cheap), and places to book adventure sports (expensive!). Sigh.

Eventually I wound up back at the hotel, where I met Steph; the five of us met back up shortly after that, and headed out again for some shopping. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, having just been over all that territory, but had no better ideas and was keen to spend some time with friends. I ended up buying something, much to my surprise -- gifts for certain family members. When we got hungry and someone's cough worsened in the cold, we headed back to the hostel and made dinner. Two pots of pasta later, we headed for bed.