Queenstown Highlight: Ben Lomond Day Hike

The Ben Lomond Day Hike in Queenstown, New Zealand, holds a special place in my heart as the first official day hike I ever did.

For this first one, I’m posting a piece I wrote for myself, just for fun, a few years ago during my study abroad in New Zealand.

(Yes, I’m a nerd who keeps a detailed travel journal.)

Full disclosure, this was my first time ever going on a proper hike, so yes, I am aware that I made some glaring, potentially even dangerous mistakes. I thought about editing them out, but where’s the fun in pretending you’ve always known what you were doing? I genuinely hope you enjoy picking them out, and don’t forget to add the Ben Lomond Day Hike to your travel bucket list!

Fast facts

Name: Ben Lomond Day Hike
Location: Queenstown, New Zealand
Height at the summit: 5735 feet (1748 meters)
Best time to hike: Summer months. (November through March. I did the hike in March and the weather was perfect.)
Time if you start from Queenstown: 4-6 hours

A Smooth Start

Before I completed the Ben Lomond Day Hike, I’d viewed hiking as an easy version of running in terms of exercise. Going into Queenstown’s widely-proclaimed most famous day-hike, my thinking was “if I’m walking too slowly to make it back for lunch, I’ll just run.”

“Just run” turned out to be both far more difficult and less appealing than I’d imagined. Starting from Queenstown, there are three ways to start the hike: from the end of Thompson Street, from the One Mile Power House on the road to Fernhill, or you can take a gondola up to a section of the track that starts further into the trail.

A quick Google Maps search yielded a pleasant surprise: the hostel I stayed in, Sir Cedric’s Southern Laughter Backpackers (highly recommend—free soup every evening!), was about a five-minute walk from the end of Thompson Street. Tossing a water bottle into my little draw-string bag, I set out in my running shoes, exercise capris, T-shirt, and a thin long-sleeve for layering.

As it tends to do, the weather heavily influenced my optimism. New Zealand is in the Southern Hemisphere, so my late-March hike opened with azure skies that stretched luxuriously over the surrounding mountains, complemented by a warm wreath of white clouds brightened by sunshine.

All systems go

Upon reaching the end of Thornton Street, a small, unassuming signpost marked the start of the trail, which only bolstered my amateur confidence. The hike was casually beautiful in the quintessentially New Zealand way right from the onset. I wound among the trees at the bottom of the mountains and enjoyed generous views of the city outskirts.

As it was around 8AM, the sun wasn’t fully up. So, I was glad for the long-sleeve while under tree coverage-at first. The track is deceptively steep and I also had to watch out for mountain bikers whizzing down, so I wound up removing my extra layer not too far into the walk. This first, easiest part of the hike was very social, with many young families and older folks sharing the trail.

A Scrappy Scramble

This view proved very deceptive. What initially appeared to be an ambling walk along a winding trail gradually became a steeply winding path, sloping forever upward. At about two hours in, I had to thank the weather gods that it didn’t look like I’d need to run anytime soon. But, my stomach was growling irritably. I reapplied sunscreen as I went (the atmosphere is actually thinner in New Zealand, making the rays dangerously powerful) and practically threw myself into the bushes for passing runners out of respect (and to get out of their way).

The groups that I met along this more draining section of the trail were as kind as they were outdoorsy. Though I hiked alone, the truly taxing areas on the trail were offset by the good-natured camaraderie we all shared scrambling up hills littered with sandy rocks and mountain brush. Not only that, but the span in ages I saw in the hikers around me was surprisingly large. Throughout the hike, I became acquainted with many local Kiwis who do the hike annually.

The closest hiking relationship I formed was with an Englishman who was also attempting the summit for the first time.

About 20 minutes out from the summit, the trail becomes practically vertical and it almost feels like the mountain itself is pushing you into submission, testing your will as you try to lift your legs against the force of gravity on a track slanted at an angle that requires a weird, hunched shuffle to navigate. I’d slowed down considerably from the zippy pace I’d set out with, and the man had gotten close enough to overtake me. I moved out of the way to be polite (and rest on a rock), but to my surprise he did the same thing, saying “I need to follow someone if I’m going to make it up this thing.”

We chatted for a few minutes, sharing a rueful laugh over the people passing us who we’d passed earlier on. Finally, we got up and my new friend took the lead for the final climb. We hauled ourselves up over boulders, and scrabbled along a rock-strewn narrow path with sharp turns, panting and huffing with the exertion of what I’d foolishly considered “just walking” mere hours before.

Solidarity in Success

Finally, we made it. Around us, other people either lay sprawled on the mountain top, or sat drinking water and munching on snacks whilst looking out over the rolling mountains and valleys. My lack of food became apparent once my friend started pawing through his bag for snacks, and he exclaimed at my audacity (read: stupidity) even as he laughingly offered me a granola bar.

We sat on the mountaintop long enough that the air began to feel cool again, talking with other hikers as they arrived, or calling down support to those who were nearly done. (The panoramic view of our accomplishment around us made it easy to say the climb was worth it, when minutes before we’d been cursing every incremental increase in the degree of the track’s slope.)

Eventually, we decided to make the trek down together as well, which proved immeasurably more brief of a venture than the first half of the journey—we essentially fell down the mountain. Afterward, I made it back to the hostel in time to nab a bowl (or three) of the hostel’s dinner soup.

Cute nuggets of hiking advice that seem obvious now, but weren’t at the time

One of the most important things I learned throughout the errors I made on my otherwise meticulously planned trip was that it’s okay to have “DOH!” moments. Not only that, but solo travelers (or any travelers) just starting out will have them, and it’s important to be adaptable and squirrel new knowledge-nuts away for the next endeavor.

Knowledge nuts

• Always bring water AND food, even if you don’t plan on being out long.
• Those cute little hiking backpacks real hikers wear aren’t just cute—they’re durable, sturdy, and effectively made me want to burn my draw-string bag when I got back to my hostel.
• Hiking shoes seem like a worthwhile investment. (Can now confirm: they are. I wouldn’t have made it through Italy without them.) Nevertheless, Asics deserves a shout-out because their running shoes (shout-out to the Cumulus model, ily forever) unfailingly carried me through all my New Zealand outdoor adventures, including the Tongariro Crossing, ft. Mount Doom—but that’s a tale for another time.
• The Internet is your nosy best friend; Google exists for the “stupid” questions you’re too afraid to ask real people and an answer to anything can be found online—especially questions you didn’t know you had. Since Ben Lomond, I have become an insatiable background researcher, and this has immeasurably manifested itself in challenging, enjoyable, and safe experiences.

Overall, the Ben Lomond Day Hike took about five hours, falling right in the middle of the 4-6 hours it was expected to take. If you’re a mountain runner, it’s certainly a doable, challenging run. As a first-time hiker, the experience was a blend of fulfilling and humbling—and as I reread this now just a few years later, I’m still able to recall in vivid detail this first major hiking experience that caused me to fall in love with the activity–and center entire vacations around hiking.