Queenstown - Queenstown, New Zealand
Queenstown, New Zealand
Our last stop in beautiful NZ was Queenstown - known as the 'adventure capital of the world'. We flew into the town through the Remarkables snow capped mountain range (appropriately named) on a sunny late afternoon to the Oak Shores Club resort a bit outside of Queenstown. The club had an hourly shuttle that took you into town (but unfortunately stopped running at 9 pm, so we always had a curfew!). Queenstown is known for adventure activities, and was reminiscent of Whistler, BC. There is also good skiing in the Remarkables from June to October. We chose not to jump or fly off anything, but there was still tons to do here :).
Early the next morning, we hopped onto a coach to drive us to the famous Milford Sound to catch a cruise, our main reason for coming to Queenstown. The 2 hour drive to Te Anau and then 2 hour drive to Milford Sound was equally as fantastic as the cruise. We winded through the Remarkables- 1 of 3 mountains in the world that runs north and south (the others being the Rockies and the Andes). We noticed a theme of the roads in NZ - windy and steep! Unlike other flat parts of the world, you can only put a road where you can between the hills and mountains. I don't normally get carsick, but I didn't feel the greatest sitting in the back of our coach. We drove around the green/blue waters of Lake Wakatipu, the third largest lake in NZ - 80 km long and 5 km wide. It contains cold glacier water fed through Glenorchy from the southern Alps. Not great for swimming, but a great spot for fishing and water sports.
We enjoyed listening to our tour guide/driver on the coach who provided us with lots of information, answering questions that we had asked ourselves throughout our journey through NZ. We learned that there are around 30 million sheep in NZ, the population of Canada! Sheep population fell from over 70 million in the 1980s due largely to conversion to more profitable (potentially) dairy farming. Also, 1.1 million deer are farmed in NZ, largely exported as venison as well as their antler fur exported to China to be used as medicine. Our tour guide/driver made many pit stops along the way to take photos and even fill our water bottles with fresh cold mountain spring water (tasted clean and refershing!). We drove by areas where avalanches had occurred, allowing us to see the destruction of not only the snow, but the high winds caused by the falling snow. The rainforests around the area were some of the fastest regenerating rainforests of the world. There is no topsoil in the mountains, but they are still covered in green trees, rooting into the lichen and moss on top of the rocks. The drive went by fast as we took in all the unique and stunning scenery of the Fiordlands, aptly named a Unesco World Heritage site. We were also on high alert for the pesky Kea bird - a parrot species that has become very comfortable around people and may be found picking apart any rubber from parked cars!
Our cruise through the Milford Sound was amazing and gliding past the huge rock formations jutting out of the water gave us some spectacular views. Our cameras captured photos of waterfalls and seals soaking in the sun as our boat rocked, at times quite violently as we headed out to the opening into the Tasman Sea. After our wonderful day of touring, we decided to wait in line for Fergburger, an extremely popular burger joint in town. It is not hard to spot to find as there is always a line outside this place and it only closes for 2 hours a day to prep/clean. We tried bacon burgers and pork belly burgers with fries and wasabi mayonnaise. The enormous freshly baked burger buns were delicious from the Fergbaker shop next door. We enjoyed the laid back atmosphere of the evenings in Queenstown sitting on the beach next to the lake with hippies playing guitar and practicing tight rope walking (?). A true bohemian vibe where you could even enjoy a beer in a public space (until 10pm that is).
The next morning, we set out for a scenic hike of the creatively named 'Queenstown hill'. The steepest part took us up a beautiful residential area to the start of the trail at the mountains tree line. We walked through beautiful native forests which transitioned into an eerie forest graveyard as the municipality is actively poisoning many imported Douglas fir trees that have taken over and bullied many indigenous tree species. We walked gently past vocal mountain goats grazing curiously near our trail and made our way to the top for stunning views of lake Wakatipu, the Remarkables peaks and the bustling town below. We were quite pleased that we opted not to take gondola ride up the mountain as our hike took us even higher than the gondola stop (and only cost us a few calories ;)).
On our third day, we picked up our rental car and headed to Glenorchy, a beautiful spot where some scenes from Lord of the Rings was filmed. This area is at the top of Lake Wakatipu, about an hour and a half drive from Queenstown. We did an easy hour walk on the Glenorchy walkway among the mountains and across streams and marveled at the serene picturesque setting. Then we headed further north to hike around the Routeburn Nature Walk. More intense hikers can take a multiday hike through the Routeburn Track and stay in huts along the way. We enjoyed the hour long nature walk through the rainforest full of unique bird songs and moss covered forest floor. For dinner, we enjoyed blue cod fish and chips at the waterfront restaurant in Queenstoen called Finz.
Our last full day in Queenstown involved more driving in our rental car (Jason had really gotten the hang of driving on the other side of the road). We decided to explore another area outside of Queenstown - Arrowtown, a quaint heritage town surrounded by beautiful mountains. In 1862, gold was found in the town and hundreds worked on the Arrow river by the town. Lovely street lined with 19th century miner's cottages now transformed into cafes, pubs, and shops. Provisions cafe and bakery had good coffee and their "obscenely good" sticky buns (we agreed!). We got distracted by the various Christmas markets, so we arrived in the next town, Wanaka, a bit later in the afternoon. We literally wound back and forth up a steep hill to Wanaka and had started hiking to Roy's Peak, which was a 10km hike. The hike was not what we expected as we had to hike through a private farm at the start. After an hour of climbing uphill through herds of suspicious sheep staring at us and dodging sheep poop at every step, we decided to turn back and go find some wine to drink. We drove to Gibbston's Valley in the Central Otago wine region, which is known for pinot noir. Winemaking here is adventurous as it has high altitude, cold winters and hot dry summers. As the rain poured down, we were happy to be tasting wine at Chard Farm, Gibbston's Valley and Amisfield wineries. We tried some delicious green lipped mussels and called it an early night as we had our long day of traveling back to Australia the next day.
Off to Port Douglas to see the Great Barrier Reef!
Tiff and Jason