Hanson's Peak and Queenstown

As we want to continue further south today, we only take a short walk through the rainforest, visit the Cradle Mountain Lodge and climb Hanson's Peak. The latter also requires a bit of climbing, but it's nothing compared to yesterday. From up here, we have a nice view of many of the highlights we visited. Among other things, we can also see the summit of Cradle Mountain, which is always in the shadow of other peaks in our previous photos. That's why I couldn't explain the plateau up there - I had never seen the summit from below!

After about 2 hours drive, we reach Queenstown. A rust-red spot in the evergreen west of the island. Copper mining has caused deep wounds here. But the town is great, surrounded by very beautiful mountains.

During our dinner outdoors, we unfortunately have to endure the company of hundreds of insects. I don't want to know how many we've eaten😳