Well, it’s official, we have all decided that city hostels pretty much suck! After Routeburn last night we rolled into Queenstown, which is pretty much a party town from what we’ve seen. Our hostel was right downtown and while it was clean and adequate, it was not a great night of sleep. The sound of hundreds of glass bottles being dumped into the garbage truck from the dumpster is a fun sound to wake to in the pre-dawn hours. We had a decent breakfast at a little bakery and then back to the road. A pretty short drive (4 hrs) up to the glacial area brought us to the Hooker Valley and a delightful hostel right at the valley base. Pretty cool when you can see Mt. Cook and the glaciers right from the window!

A short 6 1/2 mile round trip hike brought us to the glacial lagoon. There were a few small icebergs floating around in the milky water. We waded out a bit but decided a full immersion wasn’t something we wanted to do, at least not today!

We dined in the hostel on the cans of soup we have carried around for about a week in order to start the process of eating all the food so we don’t have to cart it on the ferry. After dinner we hung out in the dining area and Clare and Tuomas taught us a card game called Shithead, which is really fun and will definitely be taught to our friends at home!