Queenstown to Christchurch

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Queenstown-Christchurch
Michael Sneddon QUEENSTOWN TO CHRISTCHURCH

My time in New Zealand is over, but the last week or so has been the best time while I have been here - and there is one place in particular responsible for this: Queenstown. That place is just the best place to be, it has everything in one place - which is surprising as the local population is only around 15,000. It is the adventure capital of New Zealand and I do not think there is anywhere with more adventure opportunities in the world - but there is also so much more to the town than this as well.

It is within an idealic setting between the mountains, surrounded by a huge lake and is just buzzing with life. The night life there, which I sampled to the extreme, was so much fun! On top of all of this, the group I was there with were a lot of fun too and everyone took the chance to (literally!) dive right into everything Queenstown had to offer.

Upon arriving, we settled down for a few drinks before heading out to meet up with everyone else from the bus (including Scotty the driver!) in a bar called Altitude for. Here we were treated to live music running till about mid-night, before we left for a bar/club called World. The night gets a little hazy for me around now, but the highlight of World bar is almost certainly their cocktails which they randomly serve up in teapots!

In the hostel, which was very cool, I was sharing a room with Ciaran, Colin and Adam as I had been previously on the road... The difference was that this time we had secured a 4 bed room, equipped with cooker and fridge - meaning that it felt like we had our own pad the whole time in Queenstown - awesome! So we pretty much invited everyone else to our place every night for drinks before we would go out. I also met up once more with Denis and Paco (wont be the last time either Im sure!) for some good fun and games with them.

I started off my time in this adventure capital in quiet fashion, taking a stroll up Queenstown Hill then through Queenstown gardens to check out the fantastic views around the area. Very cool - Queenstown gardens reminded me a lot of Stanley Park in Vancouver, even had some random blown over trees!

The evenings activities once again started in Altitude, before moving along to several other bars... The reason for returning there? Karaoke! Alex, Kate (both English girls from the bus), Colin, Alan and I went along - I belted out Bonnie Tyler and a group of us sang Hey Jude... Wouldnt be so bad except that Dennis and Paco joined us and managed to video most of my karaoke - very painful to watch (sober) the next day! The night also included some tequila shots with Sebb - an English traveller and another top lad from the magic bus - and finished around 6.30am (for me!)... The rest of the lads in my room were not up quite so late as the next day they were throwing themselves off the 134m Nevis Bungy jump, as well as the Ledge jump up the hill...

In between their jumps, I joined them for a shot on the Luge - the same crazy downhill ride they had in Rotorua... It was a lot nicer day for it in Queenstown though and the track was a lot better for racing in a big group - I had some spectacular crashes - great fun! Afterwards I watched Adam and Colin complete their bungy 'thrillology' by jumping off the Ledge bungy up the hill - this one you can take a run up before you jump off (I was actually very close to doing it, but sadly in Queenstown you've gotta watch your money as the amount of activities here could empty your wallet very easily!).

Another big night ensued afterwards, with Ciaran, Adam and Colin on a total high after their big jump earlier... Sebb, Alan and Pete as well as the girls Kate and Alex all joined us meaning there was a huge group of us out to cause chaos in the town (and having drinks in our pad beforehand)! A lot of good fun was had and many more teapot cocktails were consumed.

Of the many activities I had done in New Zealand, most of them were land (or air) based and therefore warm and dry - I decided this must be fixed! Originally I wanted to do jet skiing or white water rafting but none of these run during the winter so I settled for the Shotover Jet - 'the world's most exciting jet boat ride'. Basically you are shot around in a jet boat, very close to cliff edges and spun around 360 degrees - great fun and the ice cold air and water make this (I believe) the best hangover cure there is!

At night time, we decided to go out for a change! I wanted to see some live music so we headed down to the Pig and Whistle - a bar which I visited in Rotorua and had great live music till 3am... Sadly the night we chose to visit them here was a quiz night so we went elsewhere... I was out with Denis, Paco and Emily - a lovely English traveller who I had met on the bus on the north island... For some reason, definitely Denis's suggestion and not mine, we decided to partake in some Absinth shots - drinking them the 'proper' way by stirring in caramelised sugar (you caramelise it by burning it in absinth!). You are only meant to do 2 absinth shots in a night, for it is extremely strong. Rumour is after a third one you start to see the 'green fairies'. Denis and I thought we would test this rumour. I dont remember seeing green fairies, but then again I dont remember much else! Only joking, we ended the night in a pool hall (were meant to meet other lads but they had already left) which had a couch and log fire - so we sat and had drinks by this... It was a nice end to a very random and fun evening - note that in Queenstown you dont have to be in the clubs till 6am, there are other options like this available.

That was Denis and Paco's last night, but not the last time I would see them... The next day I went for another long walk along the river, before taking a ride on a 'segway'!! Basically I went into the info centre and asked for what activities they had for under $100 - and spotted you could ride a segway. I knew what these were from Arrested Development - one of my favourite TV programmes... Basically they are like a motorised version of a pogo stick on wheels (without the bouncing!). To move forward you simply lean forward and the same for backwards - this takes a little bit of time to get used to! Anyway I laughed my ass off riding this around the park for a while - good way to spend an hour and so random! That night it was the other lads in my room's last night, so all of us got set for a big night out. James, a Perthshire lad, who we had met in previous nights joined us and we had a ball! We celebrated the end of our 'pad' by having everyone round to our room for drinks, before hitting the awesome Queenstown nightlife once more - I took a lot of photos (some very dodgy drunken ones!). I knew I'd catch up with the lads down the road, but they still, as a 'leaving present' cheekily told reception that I would clean the room and clear out all the empty bottles... Think this was maybe their revenge for the 'Red Peril' shots in Franz Josef!

My final day in Queenstown I relaxed over a game of 'frisby golf' - where you throw a frisby around into various tubs in the park! There are 18 holes and you simply count how many shots it takes you to get it into the basket (or whatever weird device you are throwing them into) - cool idea!

I met up with some of the people from the bus I had met earlier in Taupo that night - Beccy, Vicky and Steph. We once again had drinks in my pad, along with James, Sebb, Pete and Alan before heading out to paint the town many different colours - I even got to wear Sebb's hat! Naturally, I was wearing my final night shirt and tie 😉 James and Sebb are (also) crazy, fun guys and it was cool hanging out with them (6am = tequila time!!) - good times!

As I mentioned before, Queenstown was my favourite place in New Zealand by a long shot (not that everywhere else is so bad, but Queenstown is simply so awesome!). Not to mention the fact we had such a good group there. Interestingly, Adam is going to be going down the chartered accountancy training road the same as me in September (except with Deloitte) and Alan has already been down the same route I'm going with Pricewaterhouse Coopers (his one piece of advice 'dont do it'!). Accountants have a reputation of being 'boring' but they were both top notch, funny guys...Further proof that this is simply a myth!

Next stop on the tour was Dunedin. The drive there was an average drive scenery wise. Of most interest I thought was the Scottish influence you could see as you got closer and closer to the area. Towns were named after Scottish places and there were many Scottish street names. Dunedin itself is of huge Scottish influence, the name is actually Gaelic for 'Edinburgh of the south'. All the streets are named after Edinburgh streets and the buildings are similar to those you might find in the Burgh.

It was quite funny to be walking down Princes St, George St etc! The town is also centred around an Octagon road - the middle point of which is a Robbie Burns statue. I decided to take a walk around for a bit, on a wet cold day - even the weather is similar to Scotland! This Burns statue is of course the third I have seen on this trip, all in different countries - very strange!

Heading towards the University, the city reminded me more of St Andrews rather than Edinburgh - it is also a student town like St A. I met up with Kate, Colin and Ciaran - who had spent two nights there - and we went out to Murrayfield St to watch some rugby at the Dunedin stadium: The Junior All Blacks vs Australia A. Some of the Junior All Blacks had already been capped at a senior level, was cool to see them in action... Pretty rubbish game though as the JAB's walked over the Aussies 50-0... Later that night we chilled in the hostel watching the All Blacks vs Canada game - which was actually a much better game and Canada did really well! (Canadian Jen from the hostel in Auckland was at the game with a big banner saying 'Where's The Goalie'!)

Leaving Dunedin, we stopped off to see the 'World's Steepest Street' as indicated in the Guinness Book of World Records. James and I, along with another guy from the bus, decided to have a race up but none of us made it running all the way to the top (although I did win - but suffered for my victory!)...

Heading towards Lake Tekapo we stopped off to see the Moeraki Boulders - some strange exact circular boulders that had been created by minerals in the water. Ok to see, but not really that exciting - although they were on a nice beach (which was about 0 degrees while we were there!).

The drive to Lake Tekapo was amazing, one of the best drives in this tour, passing mountainous landscapes surrounded by lakes. Furthermore, there were some cool rocky hills which really stood out as the sun was beating down and there wasnt a cloud in the sky - strangely enough this reminded me a lot of our drive through Arizona - very cool. It was too sunny to take pictures out the window of the bus though on days like this 😉 We stopped at a cool panoramic view point where we could see Mounts Cook and Tasman - the tallest two mountains in Australasia...

Lake Tekapo is small scenic village resting on the Lake with views of the surrounding mountains as well. Our hostel had a huge window in the lounge with a great view. James, Ciaran and I decided to climb a nearby hill for a panoramic view of the Lake and mountains - as well as a cool sunset between the mountains (when we eventually did make it up there after getting lost!)... Where we fooled around making some sunset silhouettes...Afterwards we chilled in the hostel over a few drinks, along with the rest of the crew and had some fresh salmon we had picked up from a salmon farm down the load - very tasty!

On a misty, frosty-cold morning we left Lake Tekapo for Christchurch. Once the mist had cleared, we got some cool views of the southern alps but the rest of the drive was flat. Totally flat. Quite unbelievable given the hilly mountainous views we had experienced for almost the whole south island... The flat straight roads once again brought me back memories of my American road trip.

Christchurch is supposed to be the 'English' city of New Zealand, with the river Avon running through the centre. It is fairly easy to see why this is the case, with a cathedral as the centre of the town and old English style brick buildings. We decided against jumping on the trams and instead exploring the city by foot, walking around on a Sunday day, checking out the pretty nice flavours of the city... Christchurch I thought was nicer than Dunedin, about on a par with Wellington.

It being Kate and Alex's last night in NZ, and Colin and Ciaran's last night before heading north we decided to go out for dinner to a lovely Italian restaurant (just the 4 of us since Ciaran wasnt feeling well) which served an awesome salmon pizza - second night that week dining on salmon...Afterwards we went out for some live music, James and Ciaran joining us there. It was a great night! We watched a scottish guy entertain us with harmonica, guitar and banjo - as well as some good banter. He took requests, so we got a few in there and he played a whole bunch of songs that brought back memories of Uni days - awesome!

Saying bye to those 5 the next day, I spent it preparing for my own departure the next day... At night the girls Beccy, Vicky and Steph arrived in Christchurch but werent up for going out, so I went out with a Swiss guy called Hamish (strange name for a Swiss person!) in search for some Blues music...the 'jam' session we ended up at was actually an Irish jam session - imagine a jig involving the whole pub and about 20 people playing a huge variety of instruments - awesome! Great way to finish off a great few months in New Zealand...

I'm finishing off this blog on the plane, about to arrive in Sydney. I had mixed feelings leaving - excitement at the prospect of Australia but sad to leave New Zealand.

As I mentioned before, they say New Zealand is the adventure capital of the world. While I was there I have hiked, jogged, cycled, mountain biked, hill climbed, jet boated, bungyed, 'luged', 'zorbed', sky dived, segwayed, sand boarded and glacier trekked. I think I have done it justice... although there are still plenty of other activities!

I have thrown myself (literally!) head first into New Zealand and had a blast.

Now it's time to do the same for Australia!

Mich

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Photos

Queenstown
Queenstown, from QT Hill as the sun goes down...

Queenstown Gardens
One of the cool views on a cool day in the gardens!

Night time
Looking down at Queenstown from up the gondala as night sets in and the city comes to life...

Queenstown
I like this photo: the founder of QT with his 'wife' (well it isnt really but I thought that sounds quite funny!) - dont know why he has a random sheep beside him!

Absinthe anyone?
Denis and I preparing our absinth shots, as Paco watches on amused - the first of a long night!

Segway!
A dream fulfilled as I ride my segway along the river banks... great fun!

The Crew!
A great group in QT from top and L to R: Colin, James, Kate, Alan, Adam, Ciaran, Seb, Me and Pete

(Another) Burns
I have now seen Burns statues in the USA, Canada and now New Zealand...

World's Steepest Street
Doesnt look that steep in photo, trust me it is: I have (attempted) to run up it!

Moeraki Boulders
The jumping photos return at the Moeraki boulders!

Hostel Views
The view of the Lake from our hostel lounge in Lake Tekapo - not bad!

Sunset
Up high above Lake Tekapo - you can see a plane fly by as well as the cloud which seemed to be below us!

Christchurch Cathedral
Quite a cool building, despite the renovations - slap bang in the centre of town.

My Last Night
What better way to celebrate than an Irish jam session with a cool trumpteter who loved solos!