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Published: November 20th 2006
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Braided River Valleys
The River to the left is the Waimakariri, and to the Right is the Rakaia, they run to the north and south of Christchurch from the Alps. This shot look out towards the Pacific Well, I can almost let the photos do the talking in this entry, but i know how much you enjoy my monthly words of wisdom, so i'll let you in on the latest round of adventures.
So as a present to myself, I organised to go down to Queenstown for the weekend after my half marathon run. I’d managed to book some flights in August for just $150 return, which when you consider its nearly 2 hours flying time is a pretty good deal, as the photos show too, as i’d got a window seat the views on the way down were pretty spectacular.
I’ve said it before, but its great flying away for the weekend, especially as travel in New Zealand’s ‘geopolitically stable’ environment is still pretty laid back, with not a latex glove nor german shepherd in site.
Being ‘Thrifty’ (Cheap), I’d not booked my hire car from Queenstown Airport as pick up at the airport attracts an additional fee, and as I was staying slightly longer than 48hrs would have also attracted a 3rd day fee. Just the little things you get to learn about, I got a shuttle from the airport to the YHA
for loose change. Dropped my bags in, it was a weird feeling, the girl at the front desk, said ‘you’ve been here before’, and I had, only last time I’d arrived sunburnt, malnourished and dehydrated on a push-bike, this time by contrast, I was only mildly perspiring.
After collecting my hire car, and this time a promised holden barina (corsa) had transmutated into a Mitsubishi Colt, had the obligatory fiddle and had broken the cd player within the first 5 minutes. I went for drive and ended up driving up the switchbacks to Coronet Peak which is one of Queenstown’s Ski resorts. There was a remarkable absence of snow this year, especially compared with the North Islands ski fields, I’m trying not the blame global warming.
Last time I’d missed out on the luge in an “Steve, you went to Queenstown and didn’t do the luge, you’re gonna die a lonely, unhappy man” kind of manner, so determined not to die both unhappy and lonely. I took the gondola (cable car) up the hill and spent the next 30 minutes whizzing around a concrete track at elbow-grazing speeds in a ‘Luge Cart’ which is not unlike a wheeled
version of one of those plastic sledges your dad would get free from Asda’s with every bulk-purchase of marrowfat peas. To be honest, it was all pretty tame stuff when compared with my rally-driving antics in the Coromandel earlier this year.
After recovering (with a drink) in the spectacularly located bar, I took the gondola back into town and set about making dinner. I made friends with two members of the seemingly ubiquitous supply of young German girls touring the country, and after a few glasses of wine, we discovered we were probably going to be heading in the same direction the next day, well after they’d met some guy called Tod with a new car battery in the morning, apparently.
So, having a relatively early night, I got an early start and headed over the Crown Range Road to Wanaka. Stopped of at Cardrona Hotel which is pretty much symbolic for anything New-Zealand. The pub has been used in a thousand beer commercials, ironically to sell beer to Aucklanders, who in turn are about as far as you can get from the fair-go, good onyer mate, no.8 wire, trust yer mates’ stereotype, being much more likely to
get ‘their lawyer’ to run you down (especially if they knew you were in any way connected to the government) than give you the time of day.
So after containing my disillusion, I continued to Wanaka, detouring up towards Mt. Aspiring National Park running into sheep along the way, and driving in an unusually cautious manner. After writing off my own car and damaging my last hire, I figure my luck has just about run out. The last part of the drive involved fording several rivers, but after the first near-grounding, I wimped out, and decided that it was all a bit too much for the little colt (What I really needed was a shire horse). Anyway, got some walking done, and backtracked to an ascent of Rocky Mountain just next to Glendhu Bay which has more Lord-of-the-Rings settings than you can shake a hobbit’s staff at.
I bumped into Steffi and Jess (my new German acquaintances) at the Wanaka YHA, and we bbq-d, and had steaks and locally brewed Bavarian-style beer, it was a really pleasant evening with a cracking sunset over Lake Wanaka. In the morning I drove back via Cromwell to Queenstown and tried my
wrist action in the Arrow River at Arrowtown (I was Gold Panning by the way-what were you thinking?). After half an hour and no nuggets in sight (apart from the only obvious one who had paid $4 for the pan-hire). I returned, cap in hand to the hire shop, I’m not sure about my panning career, its now all down to my planning career I’m afraid.(boom boom!, I thankyou!)
Driving back into Queenstown I stopped at the Kawerau River Bridge to see the bungy jumping, although I refrained from any bungy action myself, my blogs testify being Steve Birnie is dangerous enough!. Queenstown has developed tremendously in the 3 years intervening my visits. They’re building a whole new town next to the airport, so if you’re making a trip do it sooner rather than later. Saying that, theres the most spectacularly located Warehouse store (Equivalent to Woolworths) benefiting from the backdrop of the Remarkables Mountain Range.(More L-O-T-R). Its tastefully done though, Not a giant Kiwi, Kiwifruit or Chinese Gooseberry in sight, they’d even used real stone in its construction.
I drove half way up to Glenorchy with a bit of time on my hands, it was a beautiful
afternoon so topped up on some south island rays. Managed to return the car to Avis unscathed (applause please), and the CD player even fixed itself. Queenstown Airport has been recently refurbished but still has a retro-cafeteria area that looks like something out of George Kennedy Airport-76 Movie, complete with primary-coloured back lit acrylic displays of their menu items including full breakfasts, tea and scones, and glasses of wine (just in case you had forgotten what they looked like), the prices however were definitely more modern.
As usual, Qantas was late, it starts i think days in advance. Because the planes are on a tight schedule, and even an airline the size of Qantas only has only something like 35 Boeing 737-200’s (you can tell I was bored on the plane), If the plane is late on the Melbourne-Auckland leg nearly 3 days earlier, you can just bet your bottom dollar that your Queenstown-Auckland flight will be more 18:00 than16:30. And, added to that we got shuffled in behind a Air New Zealand flight, but to compensate, the flight back home was no-less spectacular than my arrival (see the pics).
We got a ‘stopover’ in Christchurch, and the
steward even gave me a free (mini-bottle) of sav-blanc on the way back to calm my nerves, he could see I was gearing up for another weeks work in Auckland.
I got the airbus (that is, Aucklands answer to public transport) back to Mt Eden, and got chatting to a bloke who spent 6 months skydiving instructing in Voss, Norway, and 6 months in New Zealand. Wow, Just maybe there’s another way?. Would you insure me though?
Promise to add more soon, hope everyone is well-see you soon. Steve B
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Drago (aka Laura Drage)
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Hurray for Avis
Hey steve, you kept my attention for the whole entry - good on yer! It sounds and looks spectacular....I just turned to my norweigan friend and asked what Voss is like, did you go there last year? You really are seeing the sites, hope you are not getting lonely, although i knwo you get attached to your cars! Keep on Steve, miss your funny/ridiculous stories. Take it easy from a blogless neuvo surfer babe down under central SA! Peace x