Adventure capital of NZ – Queenstown

So we finally arrived in the land of the Kiwis after 13 hours of flying and our first impression was brrrr...it was freezing compared to what we were used to in Asia, board the plane in 35ish heat and exit the plane in 10degree heat...bit of a difference.  It took us a few days but we eventually acclimatised – finally the bottom half of my bag was put to good use and my North Face has come in very handy!

We spent the first night in Christchurch with an old friend of mine, someone who lived beside me as kids and back in the day we did everything together (horseriding, ballet, speech&drama, brownies, swimming, badminton, hockey...you name it we did it together...no laughing at the thought of me and ballet please I can assure you it was short lived haha!!).  Claire has been living in CC and working as a nurse for a couple of years now so it was lovely to spend some time with her and meet her new fiance.  We were lucky we had her as an option because there are very little tourist accommodations since the earth quake as all the hotels/hostels have either been destroyed or are being used as emergency accommodation for local people.  Having been here 4 years ago I was totally shocked to see the change and destruction in the city.  It is 1 year since their first earth quake and since then there have been 7500 after shocks ranging from 2.0 to the biggest of 5.7...unbelievable it is totally normal for them to be sitting watching tv and feel the whole ground and building shaking around them.  There is still so much evidence of the quakes with buildings left as rubble, the town centre has never yet been reopened causing 1000s of residents and business to lose their homes and livelihoods.  The government are reluctant to start rebuilding things because at the minute they are unsure when the big shakes will stop...quite scary!!

Me and Claire in Christchurch

Anyway then we got the bus down to Queenstown – 7 hours on a bus but absolutely stunning scenery passing through places such as Geraldine, Mount Cook, Lake Tekapo and many other small villages surrounded by snow capped mountain ranges so the bus journey passed  very quickly and also gave us a good opportunity to catch up on some of the jet lag.

Lake Tekapo

We arrived in Queenstown and absolutely LOVED it from the minute we arrived.  The hostel we were in was small and very cosy with very friendly people and we made some nice friends immediately.  (Although it is never a good sign when the boy checking you in says to James ‘did you go to Regent I recognise you do you have lots of brothers?’...Oh no I thought we were going to have to find a new hostel haha!!) The town itself is basically situated in the valley of 3 or 4 different mountain ranges on the edge of a large lake so the scenery and backdrop here is breathtaking.  We took plenty of pictures obviously!!

Queenstown

One of the main reasons for visiting Queenstown was to go skiing.  It was brilliant – I loved being on the slopes in September!! It was actually quite warm for skiing with people just skiing in tshirts so it was fantastic fun.  James actually picked it up quite quickly (by his standards!!) and by the end of the second day had mastered a chair lift and a few parallel turns....he enjoyed it, after a slow start and a few mishaps and plenty of falls but with a good teacher (!!) he actually did really well, naturally he found it tiring but hopefully ski trips in the future are on – YES!!! Haha!! On the third day he stayed in the town and I skied on my own...its a bit lonely skiing alone I missed my dads shouts of ‘’Richard slow down....you are going the wrong way.....don’t drop your poles off the chair...dont lift the bar yet’’ good times!! But I still enjoyed getting some good runs in for the day.  

Pretty scenery

Budding skiers!!

Proof that James can ski!!

Pleased with himself!

Showing off haha!

At one point I ventured up a rather large cliff at the top of a chair lift carrying my skies on my back to a viewing point (as advised by someone on the chair lift who assured me it was definitely a worthwhile hike)...half way up I thought it was a complete waste of time and that I might die but eventually I made it and WOAH it was so worth it.  Completely breathtaking scenery looking down into the valley and lakes of Queenstown and surrounding villages...see pictures to follow!! I felt like I was on top of the world!!

View from top of the world

Down into Queenstown

me on top of the world

Posing!

The other major highlight of our Queenstown visit was that the Ireland team were staying in the town for their pre world cup warm up week.  We spotted them around town a few times at Fergburger, Lick ice cream shop, Remarkables sweet shop, Patagonia coffee shop and generally just wondering around town...once someone spotted them somewhere word spread pretty fast of their location.  Best of all they held an open training session for supporters on Sunday for 2 hours...the actual training part was kinda boring but at the end they came over and spoke to everyone signing autographs, taking pictures and chatting to folk...it was brilliant!!! They were so friendly and it was great fun...I was like the Cheshire cat...see some of the pics below!!

One of the most interesting people we met in the hostel was a guy who worked in the vineyards in Marlborough making ‘The Ned’ wine...this is the wine that myself and my 3 besties like to consider ‘our wine’ for a special occasion so I was chuffed to meet him and hear his story.  It was even better when on Saturday night he produced 2 bottles of wine from the boot of his car for us to drink.  1 was proper Ned with the label and everything and totally yum and the other was a ‘workers’ version of Ned which they bottle off the record for themselves without the label on the bottle and just very slightly different...both were fantastic  and I still cant believe I met the ‘Nedman’!!Haha!!

On our visit here we met alot of people who were just meant to be visiting Queenstown or passing through and have ended up stopping there for months working and living...we could totally see how this could happen it is such a friendly relaxed place and the people are so nice, certainly if you were considering going to work somewhere (only in hospitality though) this would definitely be a great choice.

We loved our time in Queenstown and are glad we will visit it again in a couple of weeks time on our tour.  How could we say no to revisiting Fergburger (the worlds greatest and biggest burgers), drinking cocktails from a teapot, home made fudge at Remarkables sweet shop, cookies and milk   and generally the most stunning scenery I think I have ever seen.  On our return J will also have to man up and choose which of the ‘adventure thrills’ he is going to participate in....having already done a skydive I am pleased to be exempt from any craziness on this trip but what will he choose?  Nevis bungy (which most of the Ireland team did), Canyon Swing, The Ledge bungy, Nevis Arc swing or a skydive...the options are endless in what really is the adventure capital of the world!!!  

The only downside of NZ so far is the lack of internet availability...they don’t have unlimited plans so its relatively expensive to go online so the blog may only be weekly for a while...people keep telling us to look for a library as wifi is free there so I may discover my inner bookworm and hit the library where possible!!

World cup mania is in full force here, they are rugby mad.  The atmosphere is fantastic and it’s such a nice and memorable time to be in the country.  Every lamppost has a sign or an advert and every shop is displaying some sort of flag...one of the ski shops had an Irish flag in the window with a sign on it saying ‘The Kiwis in this shop do not in any way support this window display’...everything is in such good spirit and banter.  The opening ceremony is in 2 days so it’s quite exciting....come on BOD and come on Ireland!!

xx