Queenstown, adventure central

***Storyline:* *Home to home westward***

Alex:

Queenstown. I somewhat dreaded this part of the trip. Overbuilt, over touristy, overpopulated full of young, gung-ho outdoor enthusiasts. Not a place for recently retired, not very athletic but reasonably active retirees. I just wanted to get this part of the trip over with and move on to Milford Sound, Te Anau and Mt. Cook.

Well, I was wrong. The setting there is spectacular. And yes, it was busy (not high-season busy, but still bustling). There are lots of outdoor activities for the younger, or the more adventurous seniors. But there’s still plenty to do to match our abilities and interests. No paragliding (looks amazing),

bungy jumping (pass), jet boating (fast boats doing water-donuts to thrill the passengers and land-based onlookers) or river rafting for us (I might be interested in the latter, but budget and Diana’s motion sickness rule it out.)

Instead, we walked through the Botanical Gardens, along the lake shore and through the small, busy town centre, window-shopped (didn’t find any windows to buy though…to expensive like most other goods here, and we didn’t have room in the luggage),

hiked the 90 minutes (plus photo stops) up to Bob’s Peak – where the Gondola takes you ($45 pp return for a 2-minute, very steep ride) and basked in the stunning views from the summit.

Oh, the weather. If you’ve read our previous posts, you’ll know that South Island has thrown some mildly challenging conditions (a fair amount of rain but not torrential) at us most of our time here.

Well, we left that behind for a while. The skies were blue, with only a few clouds decorating the surrounding mountain peaks. Still primarily sweater weather, but is was Autumn after all.

We were by then used to New Zealand restaurant prices, and had been able to keep a lid on our food costs by choosing accommodations with limited kitchenette capabilities. In our two stops in Queenstown, we became very familiar with the local Four-Square supermarket, but also sampled from a couple of restaurants and bakeries.

Our culinary highlight in Queenstown was on our second stop when we shared a dozen deliciously fresh Bluff oysters. We occasionally spring for this delicacy at home – oysters there are flown in daily from the east and west coasts, but we’ve rarely sampled any so fresh and delicious as these.

Our accommodations both times were at the same place. But we had different experiences with the rooms. On our first two nights we had a lovely room with lake and mountain views. Our second, more expensive one-night stopover on our journey from Te Anau to Mt. Cook was in the only type of room available when Diana booked. It was in a separate building, had a kitchen and was more spacious than the other room, but is was on ground level in a separate, older and somewhat tired building with a great view of the sidewalk and the passing cars. Fortunately, we were there only for the afternoon before leaving at seven the next morning for the next stop on our adventure. (At the time of booking last year I didn’t realise it was the Easter week. All prices here jump with 20% around holidays-Diana). And we had the oysters that evening!

Diana:

I didn’t have any expectations for Queenstown. Booking accommodations was challenging. There was nothing in our price range. Airbnb’s were over $200 for a tiny room. I eventually found motel-style accommodation for less. Motels in NZ are like some in Scotland. They are studios or apartments with at least a kitchenette, plus a generous supply of coffee, tea, hot chocolate and a small bottle of milk, and at some places, a welcome cookie. I had called the place from Canada and they had where to store our luggage. That made it for me, since we could leave our luggage with them for the 3 nights we were going to spend in Milford Sound and Te Anau.

Alex mention it was busy, but this is only if you stay on the main drag. Same about expensive restaurants. I have a separate post for the food in NZ, however it is as everywhere else. You stay on the waterfront or on the main drag and it is expensive. But even on the pedestrian street when we moved away from the water, we ran in this restaurant that had a dozen of oysters for $30NZ tax and tip included.

Given the fact that a kilo of mushrooms in the grocery store is $19, this ($2.5 an oyster) was a really great deal! Never had oysters so good – fresh, juicy, flavorful, full bodied. And great wine at happy hour prices. And one could take out a whole hot roasted chicken for $12 from the grocery store.

Also, here I finally tried a delicious seafood chowder at a pub for under $15 and Alex had his fish and chips also for under $15 (chowder and fish and chips goes for $28 to $30 in prime locations), both accompanied with beer for a decent price.

We walked through the gardens and around the coast. Again, once past the harbour, we were almost the only people walking around.

We did the Tiki trail that goes up and around Bob’s Peak – the gondola mountain. It wasn’t busy either. Now the 90 min that Alex wrote about is an understatement. It took us almost 3 hours on a very steep uphill trail. This includes the photo breaks of course. There were other trails we could do if we had the time for it.