To Queenstown

Monday, July 23

Once again, we were up bright and early on vacation. Today, we were up by 4:30 as we had a shuttle picking us up to take us to the Auckland Airport at 5am. By 5:05, we were downstairs, checked out, and waiting for the shuttle. We got to the airport without much difficulty, and despite the rain, were at the airport by 6am for a 7:15 flight. We checked in and got to our gate, only to find our flight delayed due to weather, but not for long. I capitalized on this opportunity to doze a little more, waking back up long enough to board the plane, and then fall back asleep. 

It was a short flight to Queenstown, only about an hour and a half, landing around 9am. Upon our descent, Stephen snapped some great aerial photos, seen below. The important thing to notice – there is snow on those mountains, even with the ocean just a few kilometers away.

 This is Queenstown:

We picked up our bags and headed out into the cold (about 30F this morning), debating between a shuttle and a cab to get to our hotel. The shuttle drivers told us a cab would be cheaper and faster, so we opted to catch a cab. 5 minutes and $30 later, we were at our hotel (reminiscent of the cab ride we took in Auckland to the hotel by the airport). We were staying at the Kawarau Hotel, owned by Hilton, and on the same property as the Hilton Queenstown. One would think it would be simple to differentiate the buildings – it wasn’t. We wandered close to 10 minutes before we found a hotel employee we could follow into the entrance. 

After that, we checked in and headed to our pretty sweet room – thanks to Stephen’s incredible hotel status, we were upgraded to a suite that had a full kitchen, balcony, and even a blackout sleeping room. However, this was not the opportune moment to appreciate the sweetness of our hotel room, as we had to quickly change before catching the bus into the city – where we were going to embark on our first Queenstown adventure. I put on four layers, Stephen put on three, and we headed to the nearby bus stop to go into downtown Queenstown. While there was a transfer required, it was quick and easy (unlike the Gold Coast), and by 11am, we were in downtown.

 We first when to the local information center, in part to figure out where we needed to be to pick up our afternoon adventure and in part to book the rest of our Queenstown adventures. The first adventure we signed up for was a trip to Milford Sound – something everyone said we had to do (and something we had failed to book prior to beginning our trip as we had no idea what tour we should do). Fortunately, the visitor center made it incredibly easy – pulled out a spreadsheet with a breakdown of 15 companies and all their perks, and within 10 minutes they had called and booked us on a tour for the very next morning. After that, we also decided to book our Wednesday adventure – bungee jumping. We opted for the 43m jump off Kawarau Bridge – the original bungee jump in New Zealand.

By 11:15, we had booked two new adventures and knew where we needed to be for our afternoon pickup at 11:45. We briefly walked around downtown to get a sense of the area and stopped in a local store to buy me some $5 lime green gloves – as I had forgotten mine and it was particularly cold. We had also heard from some friends on the SCUBA trip that the adventure we were going on was unbelievably cold – so we wanted to be prepared.

We then went and checked in for the Dart River Wilderness Safari, an afternoon trip that included a 90-minute jet boat ride, a half hour bushwalk with commentary, and a scenic drive around the area where Lord of the Rings was filmed. It didn't disappoint.

Once our whole group had arrived (8 people in total), we got on the bus to begin the hour long drive to the site of the Dart River. Stu, a Maori man (Maori are the indigenous people – Stu was a descendant) was our tour guide, and despite not having very many teeth, he was quite talkative with lots of stories about the history of the areas we were driving through. Once again, I fell asleep – but Stephen not only stayed awake to hear the stories, but also take some pictures.

Once we got to the company building near the river, we were provided 2 more layers – a waterproof parka and a life vest, bringing my total layers to 6 and Stephen’s to 5.

We then got on board the jet boat – Stephen and I opting for the very front row next to the driver, figuring we would get the best view. We were provided a warm blanket to put over our legs, a heated handle bar to hold on to, and directions about how to not go overboard when the driver subjected us to 360-degree turns.

Now would probably be the right time to explain what a jet boat is. It’s somewhat like a speedboat with the maneuverability of a jet ski. It has a unique motor that sits inside the boat and sucks water up to propel itself, allowing it to easily travel in areas with as little as 4 inches of water. This is a key point as the Dart River looked less like a river and more like a stream – with lots of jets of water coming together in a braided pattern, with the water never being deeper than 1.5 meters. They had a spare motor set up in the building so we could see how it worked:

We spent the next hour and a half jet boating up the Dart River – here are some of the great views we had.

After the incredible jet boat adventure (though it was cold, Stephen and I both loved it), we returned to a site in about the middle of the river to go on a “bushwalk” for 45 minutes. Our guide spent a good deal of time explaining how many locations, creatures, and plants had been misnamed in New Zealand, while also identifying local flora and the lack of local fauna – there are no insects, spiders, ants, snakes, or large predators in New Zealand. In fact, New Zealand had no native land mammals except 2 species of bat until about 200 years ago when man introduced them. It was one of the most unique rainforests we’d hiked through, with very little moisture and no ferns. Here’s what it looked like: 

Once our bushwalk was over, we headed to a van that drove us back to the main office (where our jet boat was located), stopping in “Paradiso” (land of the Gods) to allow us more incredible pictures and an opportunity to see a few sites where Lord of the Rings was filmed

 We then got on the last bus and headed back into Queenstown – this time with me as the photographer and Stephen the one sleeping.

 

It was about 5:30 at this point and we were HUNGRY. We had not been fed on the Dart River adventure, so we decided to get some food. The most popular “restaurant” in Queenstown is “FergBurger” – a burger joint with eclectic burgers the size of your face. Stephen really wanted to try it and we decided if they had nothing for me, we could get me some noodles from the noodle bar down the street. Surprisingly enough, FergBurger had a vegetarian option called "Holier than Thou" – grilled tofu with peanut satay, vegetables, and a spicy coriander sauce. The place was packed – almost a 30 minute wait for the food, but we managed to find a few stools at the bar and ordered. The burgers were great – nothing particularly special about the style – but the flavors were good and the food was hot, so we were quite happy.

After we were full of FergBurgers, we hopped on the bus back to the hotel, changed into warm pajama pants and kept on a few of upper layers, and curled up to watch Dinner with Schmucks and warm up. 

When the movie was over, we headed to bed, as tomorrow we have to get up early for Milford Sound.

Back to Auckland

Sunday, July 22

For some unknown reason, last night Stephen and I elected to have breakfast at 8am. That meant we had to be up before 8am. Not our brightest decision, because as 7:55 rolled around, we did not want to get up. Fortunately, this was a casual bed and breakfast, so pajamas were perfectly appropriate to wear to breakfast. Stephen had an omelet with nothing in it and I had toast with local New Zealand jam. Not the most overwhelming breakfast, but it worked.

This was one of the uglier mornings we had seen, with strong winds and harsh rain falling pretty steadily. Our hosts were kind enough to call the company we had booked our morning tour with, only to confirm that the tour had been cancelled due to poor weather. This meant we could take our time this morning, re-packing our backpacks, reading the paper, and finally heading out the door around 11am. This worked out well as we had originally been a little worried about returning to Auckland in time to turn in the car.

Around noon, right before we headed into the mountains to get back to Auckland, the car began to beep, alerting us to the fact that we were running low on gas, something we were already aware of. At one point, it even claimed we had 0 km of gas left. Good news, we never had to push the car or walk to find a gas station - we made it, despite my stress. Stephen, of course, was never worried. Once we filled half the tank, (we were supposed to return it empty), we were good to go. Again, we had pictures documenting this exciting time, and again, the computer doesn't want us to have them.

By 2pm, we were back in Auckland and had returned the car, problem free. Our initial plan had been to do the Auckland sky tower, which at the moment, was completely fogged in. To put things in perspective, we couldn't see the top of the tower from our 25th floor hotel room. Imagine how bad the views would be from there. Instead, we dropped our bags, grabbed some lunch in the all-asian food court, and hit the streets, despite the rain.

Here was our really good lunch - for once, Stephen used chopsticks and I used a fork.

We then wandered through Auckland, electing to stop in a local chocolate shop, with a huge array of specialty chocolates, including some Sabrina-safe ones such as dark chocolate and cardamom and dark chocolate with honeycomb.

We each walked out with a few chocolates each - Stephen's were much more photo-worthy than mine. He opted for the unique chocolates you don't normally find, while I went for the ones I could eat. On the left is a white chocolate feijoa (a local fruit described as half apple, half lime, but looks like a kiwi), the middle is a white chocolate passionfruit - the chocolate expert's favorite, and the right is a lemon lime bitters and white chocolate. Apparently, coloring white chocolate is an unusual technique, found mainly in New Zealand.

Having purchased our chocolates, we then braved the weather to go see the harbor, which Stephen said was worth seeing, given it was only ten minute walk away (had we not stopped in so many shops). Looking at the pictures - I'm debating whether it was really worthwhile to cross the street and leave the covered walkways. I even considered demanding a purchase of jewelry to compensate for getting us wet.

After the great views at the harbor, we made our way back to the hotel, stopping in more local souvenir shops, but buying nothing beyond our chocolates. Finally, we returned, changed into dry clothes, and had a mellow evening with more movies and a dinner of sandwiches (we went grocery shopping, and once again, made an entire loaf of peanut butter sandwiches - in preparation for tomorrow's all-day wilderness trip).

Here is one final shot of the sky tower, which you can only see through the fog and mist because it is illuminated. We opted to crawl into bed early tonight, as tomorrow we have a 7am flight to Queenstown.

More Driving

Saturday, July 21

This morning we were up, earlier than we would have liked, as we had a full day of adventuring ahead of us. However, the warmth of the bed and the gray skies overhead did cause us to pause and debate whether we really wanted to go on another gondola ride. Good news - we did it.

When we got to the top, we went on a "nature" walk - it was unbelievably cold, and we were very unhappy, as seen below.

While the gondola was not the most exciting one we had done, by far, it did lead us to one of the more thrilling adventures of this trip - we got to go down a luge course. Below is the intermediate luge track.

Here are the luges - not quite the same as the ones used in the Olympics, but thats was just fine with us.

We were required to wear helmets. 

Here is me on the luge. Stephen had the camera and no fear of speed, so all the "action" shots are of me, as he was down the track a good minute or two before me every time. 

To get back up the hill to luge again, we had to take a chair lift for ten minutes. The first time, we had no issues. The second time on the chair lift, there was a small SNAFU. The chair lift stopped. For about ten minutes. It was cold, windy, high, and cold. Did we mention cold? Because it was. Finally, it started moving again and the told us if we wanted to go down the track again, to just take the other chair lift back up.

We decided since we had the time, we should do one final luge, especially since we wanted to end on a good note, rather than frustration of being stuck on a chair lift in the cold. In total, we did three runs each, one scenic track and two intermediate tracks. We took the final chair lift back up, only to get stuck one more time, and two chairs away from getting off. This time, we only waited about a minute, but it was still longer than we would have liked.

After reaching the top, we got back into the gondola, returned to ground level, and got on the road by 11am to head to Coromandel, where we were hoping to arrive before the 2:07pm low tide.

The reason we wanted to get there before low tide was because we were heading to Hot Water Beach, a beach on top of some underground hot springs, which means that if you dig a big hole, it will fill with hot water (up to 140F) - basically allowing you to dig your own jacuzzi with beach-front views.

We flew down back roads to get there by 1:45, only to see the sky was very overcast and a cold wind was blowing. Despite all of this, we put on swim suits and made the trek out to the beach where a number of people were already digging. Once we got close, we realized we probably should have brought shovels, like every other person there, since the beach shop was closed for the winter.

Good news, the locals were friendly and willing to loan us their shovels, as well as some much needed advice - including the knowledge that you should dig in the hot sand, not the cold sand. It took us four tries to find said hot sand. Here is Stephen digging hole number one:

It had very cold water, and just kept getting colder the deeper we dug. It was at this point, we asked the locals for some advice. Here are more people digging holes like us:

This is hole number four. You can see how much work I did:

Success! We had hot water coming in on the right and cool water on the left, making it just about perfect in the middle.

Here is our great view of the beach, and our supposedly sturdy wall.

We took lots of time to relax and enjoy the view after the hole was complete.

However, the tide started to come back in - and all it took was one big wave to ruin a jacuzzi.

This happened to us three times before we finally decided, we were good - an hour and a half in a hot water sand hole was enough.

Covered in sand (a complete understatement - we found sand for two days), we did a quick rinse in an ocean-water shower, got dressed, and drove to the bed and breakfast where we were to spend the night. Wish we could show you what it looked like, but currently there appears to be a disconnect between the camera and the computer.

The owners of the B and B greeted us warmly, showed us to our room, had us place our breakfast orders, and let us shower away as much sand as possible. Once we were clean, we headed into the kitchen to capitalize on the wireless so we could check some emails and figure out where we wanted to go for dinner.

Around 7, we hopped in the car, drove downtown, and headed to a Thai restaurant our hosts recommended. After dinner, we headed back to the B and B, curled up under the electric blankets, and headed to bed. Tomorrow we are scheduled for a cruise of Coromandel bay and return to Auckland - our last day of driving.