The Black Sheep Backpacker's Lodge Queenstown

Some of you have already seen that I put a couple of new photos in the last two entries before this one but for those who don't know, feel free to take a look. The girls came back from their glacier hike absolutely ringing wet. Apparently the rain didn't stop AT ALL for the entire day so they were very wet and extremely cold. They all agreed that they could see how the glacier could be stunning on a nice day but due to the weather conditions, visibility was very poor. When I saw all of their ...

Bungy Jumping...I decided I needed to do this and I needed to do Nevis. This jump is the highest in New Zealand -- 134 meters or 440 feet. The jump is from a railcar suspended in mid-air on a highwire in a canyon over the Nevis River. You need to see it to believe it. As we drove there the anticipation I equate to the feeling I would get on the bus on the way to a cross country meet in high school. I kept visualizing over and over in my head my jump, so that I would actually do it. I wasn't t...

Bring money. Bring lots of money! Queenstown isn't more expensive than Christchurch with it's accommodation or drinks, and both are far cheaper than Sydney or London. But there are simply tons of activities to do - similar to Cairns - and they aren't cheap. They include the worlds 3rd highest bungy, Nevis, at around £90, other bungy's, jetboats, rafting, skydiving, paragliding and many many more...I think if you did an activity or two every day you could easily spend £1000 in a week here, and...

Sunday March 7th I dragged my aching legs out of bed at 7am (6pm Saturday in London, 1pm in DC and 9am for you boys up in Alaska) to watch Arsenal destroy Portsmouth in the FA Cup, followed by a replay of (world champion) England's disastrous return to Twickenham. Today I had arranged to meet two friends I went to college with in the States. (Soon to be Dr.) Ben Davis is in NZ for a couple of months working in a hospital, and Abigail Smigel who just flew in for a holiday. After catching up ov...

Monday March 8th It ended up being a rather late night trying to deny how utterly scared I had been before that first jump. I was woken up at 7:30 by people leaving (why do all backpackers have to mess about with extremely loud plastic bags early in the morning?) and, as always, had no idea what city I was in. It took me a couple of confused seconds to realise I was in Queenstown, home of the Canyon Swing. The mere thought of it got my heart racing again and the adrenaline pumping, and any th...

After a fairly long drive we arrive in Queenstown and after checking into a hostel we drive a bit further round to Glenorchy. The drive is along the lake and it's really beautiful coming down into Glenorchy. Once at the town we go for a walk around by the river and a lagoon which is amazing. Some of The Lord of the Rings was filmed around this area and you can see why. We then drive back to Queenstown where we collapse in the hostel where we remain for the rest of the night. In the morning we...

25.05.09:Time to leave beautiful Milford Sound...under the sun! We drove through "the Alps". It seems that Australians and Kiwis like to steal the European names for mountains. It is not the first time we see "Alps" and we even saw "the Pyrenees" in Australia! the windy roads have beautiful views. We went through the Omer tunnel in the mountain, which looks pretty scary. It looks like they just dug a hole and that was it. No concrete inside apart from the road. I am sure it looked just the sa...

Seen as Milford sound is a dead end its a long drive back to get anywhere, took me about 2 hours ish to get back to Te Anau and from there its another 2 hours drive to Queenstown. I had got in touch with Karl who had been in queenstown a few days already and went to check into the same hostel as him but that was full so i checked into the Black Sheep hostel around the corner. Then it was straight into town to meet Karl for a drink and stayed out then for the rest of the evening. Queenstown is...

Have arrived at the goal of my journey! Had a great drive down here in Margaret, the scenary is just phenomenal , it gets a bit repetitive everytime you turn a corner and find yourself mouthing "holy fuuuuuuuuuu" at the mountains and views in front of you. I had a pee break halfway and tried to practice fitting my snow chains....the packets quote of "quick, clean and easy" is a complete lie! Have only been here for about 4 hours but have wandered round the town and fallen in love with the pla...