Blogs from Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 13

So, this day I drove to Queenstown. A place I hadn't intended to go to as I heard it was crowded with tourists. But I had to return the car there so I really had no choice. Little did I know that my car adventure was going to start 20 kilometers from the airport where I was supposed to drop off the car. I just past Arrowtown when I noticed the little blinking light telling me I needed gas! Yikes! How long had it been blinking??? Could I really go 20 kilometers?? Arrowtown was just 7 kilometers away, perhaps I should detour to there and get a few liters? I really didn't want to run out of gas so I did a u-turn and headed for Arrowtown. Where, of course, there was no gas! Shucks! A ... read more

Our first hiking adventures in NZ...... When: 26 January – 13 February 2014 Location: Queenstown – Wanaka Arrived beautiful Queenstown via a direct flight from Sydney. Our first day of hiking – Dave planned a warm up hike to get the legs and body ready – it a casual 20km hike up and down Ben Lomond Summit* ** The track begins among Douglas fir on Skyline Access Road/Tiki Trail. At about 800m altitude, you enter alpine tussocks and shrubs, climbing to the 1326m Ben Lomond Saddle (Ben Lomond Station). The track gets steeper and rougher as it approaches Ben Lomond's 1,748m summit. In fine weather, the view includes Mounts Earnslaw / Pikirakatahi and Aspiring / Tititea. We had a picture perfect day, starting with low cloud that concealed Queenstown but then cleared away after we reached ... read more

Over the Christmas break we spent a few days in Wanaka, where I got to pilot an Aerobatic, Pits Special. It was so much fun and I really enjoyed it, the best part was we didn't end up in a flaming wreck with me at the helm! After this we moved to Queenstown for a few night, one of the most beautiful parts of New Zealand. In Queenstown. I went parasailing, I was going to go skydiving we were literally walking up to the plane with our gear on when it was cancelled because of high winds. We saw a plane full of people come back. So I had to do it in Auckland. There's a moment when you are about to jump out of the plane when you realise that lawn bowls would also have ... read more

Ok so just a quick update whilst we have Wifi. We arrived in Queenstown last night, and went for a great meal at an Irish bar. Jan & Den were so surprised by the surprise visit from Carey who wasted no time in getting the beers in-cue hangovers this morning. We are currently up the mountain after a few races on the luge. The views are amazing and everyone is having a great time! We were all awake quite early this morning, and the sky had cleared to reveal the peaks of the mountains we couldn't really see yesterday. it was beautiful. we had a lovely breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast before setting off for a walk to Hooker Valley. The cloud seemed to have dropped again pretty quick and although it wasn't cold, I ... read more

So we woke at 6.30 still in the harbour so not quite the waking up in the middle of nature but it had rained all night and was still raining so we did wonder what we would see. 40mm of rain had fallen over night. Once breakfast had started we left harbour to head off back up the sound. And it was such a different sight than the afternoon before. Hundreds of waterfalls had sprung up overnight. And ones that had been there before were hardly recognisable as they were so much bigger and more powerful. Not good for indigestion as one minute you are tucking in to bacon and eggs and the next you are on your feet taking photos outside! In an ideal world the storm would have passed and we would have had ... read more