Blogs from South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 1175

I was pretty jealous of the folk who had perfectly clear weather and took a scenic flight back to Queenstown, so you can imagine how happy I was to wake up and find that yesterday's overcast weather had cleared and once again the sun was shining without a cloud in sight. I phoned the airline and arranged to be picked up from my hostel, taken to the airport, a 45min scenic flight and a transfer back to the hostel in Queenstown.  Yep, the credit card has absorbed yet another one of my impulses which I will have to deal with when I get home!!! It turned out to be even better than that though - for no extra charge a hunky pilot picked me up and flew me back to Queenstown!!! Oh yeah!!! You will be pleased to ... read more

Well what can I say.. a great trip comes to an end... New Zealand's South Island is one of superior beauty. We flew into Christchurch on the 24/7. After a few troubles at airport security (surprise surprise) we went to the car hire section. As it turns out they had stuffed up our booking. They had given us 2 cars that had not been skiierised, even though they knew we were driving to Queenstown to ski. So after reorganising, that took us just as long as it did to fly form Sydney to Christchurch, we were under way with our 6 hour drive at 7pm. We drove in complete darkness the whole way, which we would later find out was a tremendous shame. We arrived at Queenstown and checked into our hotel. Rohan, Az and I ... read more

It was an 8am start on the ski shuttle to the 'Remarkables' ski area - apparently in the summer months they filmed some scenes for LOTR here. This mountain range is one of the few that runs North-South. It was a little cloudy but the journey up the hill gave me a perfect view of Queenstown and the surrounding area. The Remarkables ski area is the highest in altitude in the region and after 13,5km of winding twisting steep and at times very scary paths in the big bus I was glad to get my feet on steady ground / snow. But almost immediately I was carried in wave of people onto a less stable surface!As a novice skier and a snow virgin I am not accustomed too the ski/board jargon - what the heck is ... read more

The first stop of the morning between Wanaka and Queenstown was at puzzling world Well this certainly mucked up my head first thing in the morning. The holograms were pretty smart but the hall of moving faces freaked me out. It is based on the Mona Lisa moving eyes type trick. The next room looked normal from the outside but actualy played tricks with sizes for anyone looking in while there were people inside. This is the same simple technology they used in the Lord of the Rings films to make the hobbits look small. However it was the last room that made me feel dizzy and basically under the influence in a pretty major way. Firstly I walked into a mirror that I thought was another room. Then I had the sensation that I was ... read more

We leave for the Big OE.... read more