Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
There were two buses that stayed the night at Wanaka instead of the usual one as the Kiwi Experience was so busy that they needed to put another bus on to deal with the demand, so this meant they had to stagger the departure times so that both buses didn't arrive at each spot that we stopped off at, at the same time so we didn't overload the destinations! This meant that I had to be ready to leave by 9am as I wasn't told which bus I was going to be on, as it happened I was on the second bus so had an extra half hour waiting in the lobby area playing games on my phone until it was 9.30am when we were allowed to board the bus, which obviously was full to capacity! My new bus driver for this journey was called Flea obviously her nickname, and I'm guessing that she was nicknamed Flea because of her lack of height! I did find this bus incredibly clicky, which meant that it was hard to get to know people as they were reluctant to make new friends, but I was quite lucky that I had someone with me from my previous bus that stayed an extra night in Wanaka as well which meant I had someone I knew!
Just 5 minutes out of town we stopped off at a place called Puzzling World for a couple of hours where there was an illusion house and maze to conquer if you paid the admission fee but I had heard from people that had already been that it was not worth the money so I decided against it and just sat out in the lounge area and made the most of the free mind numbing puzzles! The toilets were also highly amusing because they were Roman style meaning they had just a long bench with wholes cut out where you sat to do your business, obviously these weren't the real toilets and were just for fun! We left Puzzling World at 11.30 and began to head towards Queenstown; it was only a short drive from Wanaka to Queenstown but because of all the stops we made it meant it took up most of the day! The drive is actually the shortest drive that the Kiwi Experience does! About 40 minutes after we left puzzling world we called in at Mrs Jones fruit shop where there was every fruit and vegetable you could possibly think of for sale, all freshly grown, there was also a taster table which was full of various fruits as well as chocolate and yoghurt covered fruits which were amazing, but although there was plenty there to sample when we arrived you can imagine that the amount of samples quickly diminished once 50 kiwi experience passengers had pounced on it!
After our short stop here we continued on through the town called Cromwell and around the edge of Lake Dunstan as we headed for the Kawarau Gorge. Upon entering the Gorge the scenery transforms into rugged rocky terrain. The Kawarau Gorge is home to the world's first commercial bungy site and is still going today, the height from which people throw themselves off of this bridge is 43 metres which is nothing when compared to the Nevis which stands at 134 metres which is what most people do when in Queenstown. The first thing we did when we entered the building at the Gorge was go into a movie room to watch the short film entitled 'The Secrets Of Bungy' which gave us an insight into the history of bungy jumping which was quite informative! After this we went outside to watch some people bungy jumping off of the bridge at the Gorge, then we had our group photo where all 100 of us crammed onto a small ledge and built a human pyramid, it was painful though, but must of hurt the people on the bottom the most as it was constructed by 12 or so people laying on the floor face down then there would be about 10 people that would get on top of them, and then more people on top of them until we had built ourselves a pyramid, so obviously it was bliss for the people at the top of the pyramid as they got to squash everyone beneath them. After this everyone that was going to be doing a bungy had to make their payment then we were soon on our way out of the Kawarau Gorge and making the short trip into Queenstown, which is definitely the place to be in New Zealand to party, everyone raves about the place and upon entering you realise why, it's such a cool town. I had high expectations and I wasn't let down.
As we drove into Queenstown Flea pointed out things of interest before she dropped us off as Base for us to get checked in, I was only staying there one night as I only had one night left on my Base Jumping card which entitles you to 10 nights' accommodation at Base for a discounted price, but I wasn't that fond of Base hostels so decided to not renew the membership when it ran out so looked for alternative accommodation as I was going to be in Queenstown for six nights in total. Once checked in I met this girl in my dorm who I chatted to for ages, as she was telling me how she was going to live and work in Queenstown over the winter months but I asked her where the nearest supermarket was and went there once I got away, I also called in at the hostel 'Alpine Lodge' that I was going to be staying at for the next five nights just to confirm my booking. Upon returning to the hostel it was already quite late so I quickly made some dinner and got that down me before I got showered and got ready to hit the town hard along with everyone else in Queenstown or so it seemed to celebrate our arrival in the adventure capital of the world. Queenstown's nightlife is rated amongst the best in the country so despite an action packed day we all saved some energy for a good night out. To get the night underway we went down to Base bar called 'Altitude' where we played a few games and saw our group photo appear on the big screen, we stayed here until gone 11, and then made out way to the World bar which serve up their infamous Teapot Cocktails, and it wouldn't take many of them to get me dancing trust me lol! We stayed here for the rest of the night and partied into the wee hours!
Despite a big night on the town I had to be up to check out at 10am which was not nice believe me, I then had some breakfast here before I took the short 5 minute walk down the road to my new hostel to check in, which they wouldn't let me do until 11.30 so I was waiting in the lounge for a while until the room was ready for me. Once I had unpacked as I was going to be in Queenstown for a long time, I went for a stroll around the town to see what it had to offer and ended up taking a wander through the Queenstown Gardens where there were many people playing Frisbee golf, which I never did get round to playing as much as I wanted to. After that I returned to my new hostel to get my laundry as it needed doing so I went to the local laundrette as the hostel washing machine was full all day so I sat in the laundrette for what seemed like an eternity waiting for my clothes to wash and then dry, it felt like I was in an episode of Eastender's sitting in that laundrette to be honest with you. Once it had finally dried I bagged it all up and carried it across the street and took all my washing out of the bag and folded it neatly and put into my backpack. Then it was time for some pasta and sauce for dinner, before I made use of the free wifi on offer at the hostel before bedtime and a less party orientated night than the one prior.
The next day which was a Thursday I had to wake up to speak to the parents on Skype but it didn't matter as I had to be up early anyway for the free breakfast that the hostel offered which was only available from 8.30 until 9.30am. It was only cereal and toast but that's all you need and you could go up for it as many times as you liked so I tended to eat more than I should have done as it was there. After coming off Skype and getting ready for the day I decided to go on a walk up Queenstown Hill Walkway which was a route up a hill in Queenstown's backdrop, it took about 20 minutes to walk to the start of the route from the hostel and then a further 1 hour or more or reach the summit, but it was worth it as offered sensational views over the whole of Queenstown, although it was incredibly windy and cold at the top of the mountain. The mountain also gave views of Lake Wakatipu which is the lake that Queenstown is nestled on, facing the Remarkables mountain range. After eating lunch at the top of the hill, I started my descent which took about one hour from the top of the hill and back to my hostel where I met a girl in my dorm from Germany who was going to walk up the Skyline Gondola walkway, which is one of the things that I wanted to do whilst in Queenstown so we decided to walk up there together.
The start of the walk was only about 10 minutes away from the hostel and it took about an hour to climb our way to the top but it was an extremely demanding walk up steep inclines most of the way through forests and on uneven and not very sturdy ground for most of the walk, but when we eventually made it we were greeted by the views that I had seen earlier on in the day but from a different angle, they were still spectacular nonetheless, and it had got even windier. There were many people lugeing at the top of the walkway so we watched them for a while, before venturing around to find the Gondola which you are meant to pay to use but we snuck on one for free, it takes you from the top of the mountain right to the bottom and saved a arduous trek back down the hillside, it was also pretty cool just hanging mid air in a small container bobbing down the hill on a cable really slowly. It took nearly 10 minutes to reach the bottom of the hill and we just walked off casually and out of the station and back onto the streets without having to pay which was a bonus and nobody even checked us, I knew it was possible as someone I had met on the Kiwi bus had told me they had done the same thing so told me to give it a go so we did. We then made the short walk back to the hostel as it was starting to get dark; I was also quite knackered after all the walking I had done that day. For dinner that night I decided to go and check out the infamous Fergburger, which is supposedly world famous for its huge burgers and is one of the must dos when you visit Queenstown. They are open from 8am until 5am so nearly 24 hours and there is always a queue there no matter what time of day it is, it's so popular, but they make a lot of their money out of people going there during or after a night on the town and buying a drunken Fergburger. The burger I ordered was the biggest one they sold, as I thought if I'm going to get one I've got to do it in style so opted for the NZ$16.50 burger, and it was worth every cent. It was huge bigger than my head and weighed a ton. It was encompassed in a massive burger bun, loads of relish and sauce, lashings of bacon, two half pound beef burgers, heaps of cheese, lettuce and beetroot and 2 eggs as well as all the other stuff I've forgotten, it was just insanely big, but I did manage to eat it all however I was very full afterwards. I also met some friends that night as you usually do wondering around Queenstown as it is where everyone spends the bulk of their trip in New Zealand as it is the place to be. You continually bump into people that you haven't met for weeks. That marked the end of another very good day in Queenstown.
The next day I was up nice and early again to make the most of the free breakfast and then I spent the day doing various walks within the local area, with the majority of them being strolls along the lake, none of the walks were too demanding as they were on flat terrain and it was just something very relaxing and chilled out to do, and allowed me to choose a funky spot by the lake to have my lunch. I also had to call in at the supermarket on my way back to the hostel as I had to get some bits and bobs for dinner, I decided to go all out and test my cooking skills by making myself meatballs, potato wedges and peas and corn for dinner. When dinner time came around I followed the cooking instructions from the meatball flavouring packet religiously and apart from the heavy smoky clouds that came from the oven because the cooking oil had leaked onto the bottom of it, everything went to plan and I had conjured up a really good meal, the meatballs even stayed together perfectly shaped, I was proud of myself. It tasted really good too. That night I just chilled out on the internet to what I had to do.
The following day was Saturday, and I had decided that I was going to try and conquer the hardest hike there was to do in Queenstown, which was the Ben Lomond walkway, which took 7 hours to accomplish according to the signs. I had way too much free breakfast before I was on my way to the start of the walk, which was only about 15 minutes from the hostel, the only trouble was that it was chucking it down with rain and was really overcast but I still decided to try to complete the walk even though I had dreadful conditions for it. It was very hard at some parts and was made even harder by the gale force winds blowing the rain in my face making conditions very bitter and slippy, I was persistent and motivated to carry on however despite the appalling conditions, and made it to within 1 hour and a half of the summit before I had to give in as the conditions were just getting so severe it was making it impossible to go any further and extremely unsafe to go any further as the mountainside was very steep, and one bad move could have seen me tumbling down the mountainside, so despite being very stubborn I had to give in and concede defeat to mother nature and start heading down and the higher I had been climbing the more conditions were deteriorating and the colder it was getting, I even managed to climb higher than the clouds they were that low. I still had to concentrate on my descent though as the ground was very dangerous because of the wet conditions, so I took my time, and despite going the wrong way at one stage I managed to get back on track and find my way out of the forests and back onto the road that I started on, the rain still wasn't letting up so I decided to head back to the hostel to dry off and did so in front of the X-men movie. After dinner this night which again was meatballs, wedges and veg, as I had brought enough for three meals worth, I went into town as later that evening Man Utd and Spurs were playing each other, and I hadn't watched a full game of football since I had left the UK so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to see Spurs do Utd. So I was sitting in the bar chatting to some people and got the beers in waiting for the game to start, which was at 11.45pm New Zealand time when the barman comes around and says to me that they are going to be closing in 15 minutes, I thought that was bloody marvellous as it meant that I was only going to get to see the first 15 minutes of the football, and sure enough bang on midnight the TV went off and the bar shut along with every other bar in Queenstown, as the Sunday was ANZAC day which is a Bank Holiday and remembrance day in New Zealand so all bars had to shut at midnight that Saturday under the laws of opening hours on Bank Holidays, so that sort of spoilt my fun for the evening and meant I had to go back to my hostel earlier than anticipated where I tried to screen the game live on my netbook but it was very stop start and I can't watch a game of football like that so I just gave up and went to bed.
The next day or that same day should I say, was ANZAC day and it was still raining heavily and the roads were starting to become covered in big puddles of water from the sheer amount of rain that had fallen. I was up early as ever to get my breakfast, but I was so tired and the weather was so bad outside that it meant it was not worth going out that I went back to bed for a few hours. After waking up I went on the internet and just chilled out in the hostel until later that evening when a few of us went bowling for my last night in Queenstown. I wasn't able to do anything in the daytime as the weather was so severe that it wasn't worth venturing out, and most of the activities of offer in Queenstown are outside so there wasn't a lot to do, so after my speciality of meatballs, wedges and veg for dinner for the third night in a row, I went bowling, it was a 10 minute drive down the road, and a couple that I went bowling with had their own car so they took us there in what were very treacherous conditions on the road. We all had vouchers from the hostel which gave us a game of bowling and a beer for NZ$10, I had an brilliant first round of bowling and broke the 150 mark from memory which meant that I won the game, and after we all had so much fun in the first game we decided to play again, when I got about 120 which was still a good score and meant that I came second losing out by one point. I really had a great time bowling though and it gave us something to do which was indoors and out of the rain, the fact that I played well just made it even more enjoyable. When we returned I had just enough time to jump on Skype before I was off to bed ready to depart Queenstown bright and early in the morning for Christchurch.
Queenstown will definitely live long in my memory =D
Love Toby xxx
P.S. just days after I left Queenstown it flooded due to the heavy volume of rain that the town suffered causing a rise in the lake water levels which only made matters worse.
- comments