Happy New Year!

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Day 118-119
1st-2nd January

Happy New Year!

Ellory and I were awake surprisingly early and decided to pack up our things and head on out. We were all going our separate ways that day as Gillie and Simon were off to spend that night at his uncle’s house as they had their flight back to Vietnam on the 2nd and had to leave Queenstown at 4.00am on the 2nd to get back to Christchurch in time to make their flight. We had decided to spend a bit longer in Queenstown as there were a lot of things we wanted to do so we loaded our bags into the hire car, thanked Stef for letting us stay and went for a drive to find somewhere to stay for a couple of nights.

In the few days we had been in Queenstown we had driven past a place called the Pounamu Apartments. I had seen that you could stay there on a nightly basis and they looked lovely. We had saved a bit of money as we had been staying with people for a week and decided to check it out. We were told they only had studio apartments available and the price, although wasn’t cheap, we could afford and we decided to treat ourselves for New Year. We couldn’t check in immediately as it was early so we headed back to the car to find something to do for a few hours. As we headed back, the woman from reception ran after us and said there had been a cancellation, did we want a one bed apartment instead? It wasn’t too much more expensive and after a bit of ‘shall we?’ we decided to go for it. We hadn’t been able to see what it was like but the lady assured us they were very nice and had their own balcony, sounded good to us!

So we decided to head to Arrowtown for a few hours. Gillie and Simon had told us what a lovely place it was and we thought it could be a good place to get some food and check out the range of Pounamu as Ellory and I were quite keen on buying them for each other and one for Barron. We spotted a country looking pub called The Stables and ordered a fantastic breakfast of toast, poached eggs, mushrooms and in my case, bacon. Two glass of orange juice washed that down. We were so impressed with the food Ellz even asked them how they cooked the mushrooms so he could do it that way when we get home for a tip they were fried with rosemary and salt, I would highly recommend this place! We then went for a walk along the high street and popped into the Jade and Opal factory to have a look at their range of Pounamu. They had a massive selection and we spent ages choosing the right ones for each other for Barron. I ended up with a twist, which signifies the joining of 2 lives and Ellory got a fish hook which means safe travel. After this it was time to head back to the apartments and check into our room. While Ellory got the bags out of the car, the lady took me up to the apartment. Holy cow, this place was AMAZING! The front door opened onto a hallway that had a desk with a computer, printer, skype etc set up, to the right was a door that led into the bedroom and en suite bathroom. There was a big comfy bed, a lovely bathroom and shutters that opened up onto the kitchen and living room area. If you came out of the bedroom and turned right there was a small flight of stairs that led down to the kitchen and living room area. This was spectacular, a fully fitted kitchen with all sorts of pots, pans, wine glasses etc that you would need and a living room with a giant sofa, big flat screen tv, fireplace and stereo. One whole wall of this place was glass and opened out onto a big balcony with a fantastic view of the lake and mountains. I think the lady had to laugh at me, I was so excited I ended up squeaking about how amazing it was! She handed me the keys and this wonder was ours for 2 nights. I rushed down to the car park to help Ellory with the bags and he laughed at me because I was gibbering so much! I dragged him up there and then he could see why I was so excited! This place was soooo wonderful and it was a nice little treat for us.

We wanted to meet up with Gillie and Simon that night before they headed back to Simon’s Uncle’s house so we texted them to say did they want to come round for dinner? We really wanted to do something for both of them to say thank you for everything they had done. We arranged a time a nipped out to the shops to get supplies for Ellory to make his special spaghetti bolognese. While Ellory did the chef thing I tidied our things away and got ready for the evening. It was strangely nice to be doing something so normal. We had both really missed it and are looking forward to the time when we can invite friends and family round for dinner when we’re back in England. Gillie and Simon arrived and we had a great evening having a few drinks, great food and chat. All too soon it was time for them to leave. Ellory and I got very sad at this point. We knew it could be a long time before we saw them again, Vietnam is quite far away! However we’d had a lovely time with them and it made our time in New Zealand over the holiday period really special. Thank you guys, we miss you! Xxxx

The next day, the weather had turned again and was very rainy and cold, so how did we spend our day? Being horrendously domesticated by doing the washing, cooking and generally hanging out together and pretending this slice of domestic heaven was ours. We also booked to go clay pigeon shooting the next day and did some skype calls. All in all, very relaxing and a perfect way to spend a rainy Sunday.

Love Liz xxx

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