Queenstown yet again. Plus more drama in my life!

 

 

The temp hit 30c every day for the week I was in Queenstown.  On one day, it was 32c.  But all of the country hit high temps that week.  I believe Wellington was about 26c a lot of the time.

I saved up all my puff and energy for a 'go' on my last day there at walking the Queenstown to Frankton track, a favourite walk that I usually do every morning when I'm in Queenstown but because of my sore feet had not been able to attempt so far on holiday.

I thought I may be able to do half of it.  So, hiking-stick-but-really-walking-stick in hand, I caught a bus to half way along the track.  I would be lucky in so far as if I got tired or my feet hurt, the main road with bus stops ran adjacent to the track and I could pop off the track any time I liked.

But I walked the last half of the Queenstown-Frankton track!  Not jauntily as I would have preferred.  I hobbled slowly, but when I got to the end I felt so jubilant that I wished I'd attempted the whole track.  So ... I caught a bus back to where I'd got off the previous bus, and walked the track's other half.  Triumph.  Here's a picture I took from near the Frankton end of the track.

Now, you know all about my fall three days before I left home for Q'Town?  And having bandaged ankles whilst I was away? And hardly being able to hike?  And the stress of trying to get into my locked hire car?  And being locked out of my holiday home?   Yes, sure, all highly entertaining stuff for a holiday.  More like a sitcom, really.  Well, there was one other tidbit:  I developed a rash!  Big red angry splotches, mainly over my torso, but a few on my neck, and limbs.    Immediately on return from my holdiay, I visited the doctor.

I wondered if it could be sandfly bites.  Sandflies usually hang around me in droves at Lake Taupo.  But, honestly, I hadn't seen any at Lake Whakatipu (Queenstown's lake).

"No," said the doctor, peering at my tummy intently. "They're definitely not sandfly bites."

"I wore a merino wool top?"

"Doesn't look like a wool allergy."

"How abouit fleas?  I tried on some clothes at a thrift shop?  Or the cheap moisturiser and hair shampoo I picked up on my first day in Queenstown?.  Hey, it could be heat rash?   Or Lake pollution?  Scabies?  Oh-oh-I haven't got chickenpox?"

"No.  No.  Nope.  Nah.  No.  No!" said the doctor, ticking the points off one-by-one.  "But It's definitely an allergy."

"To what?"

He shrugged.  "Could be anything.  From something you've eaten to the effects of a spider bite."

"So," ruminated  my swimming friend, J, when I imparted this information to her later, "you don't know what you're allergic to, so you have to cut out everything?"

"That's about it," I said.




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