Queenstown!

  Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand
Sunday, January 4, 2009

Once again, we set off early from Makarora and made our way towards Queenstown, which is the largest tourist destination in New Zealand and is really where I was wanting to get to on this trip so I could spend a few days there. Again, along the way, Skins would stop at a variety of places to take a picture or see some natural wonder.  This southern part of New Zealand is marked by a large number of unbelievably beautiful lakes surrounded by mountains, and along the coast, you are driving through mountainous rainforests the whole time, which is really unlike anything I've ever seen.

Spectacular Lake Wanaka

One of our stops on this stretch was in Wanaka, a town that Mick O'Grady had told me was pretty cool.  We stopped there for about two hours to walk around and have lunch.  In retrospect,  I wish we had spent the night here rather than in Makarora, but oh well.

Taking in Lake Wanaka

  Wanaka is on the end of one of the lakes and you can tell that despite its size, that it is rapidly growing.  There were several cranes (in a town of no more than 2,000) and everything was very nice and new.  I found a local brewpub and got some food and walked around a bit.  Something that is notable is how similar, in terms of food, that New Zealand and Australia are to the U.S.  Most of the menu items are pretty much what we'd find back home- pizza, burgers, fries, chicken, etc.  There's also a lot of Asian influence in the area as well.  Also notable is how much the U.S. is in the news.  I guess in a country that has fewer people than the state of Kentucky, there isn't a lot of national news, so they report on the international stuff alot.  I picked up a local newspaper and two of the four front page stories involved the U.S., and one of the others was about Israel invading the Gaza Strip. 

Anyways, we left Wanaka and picked up several people for our bus there, including two British sisters in their early 20s that were a lot of fun.  Off we went to Queenstown, considered the adventure capital of the world.  Our first stop coming into Queenstown was at a bridge just outside of town, home to the world's first bungee jump.  Queenstown is known for its outdoor adventure sports like bungee, canyon swings, canyoning, skydiving, off road riding, kayaking, white water rafting, etc.  This was the first real bungee jump I had seen and it was pretty awesome.

Bungee Jump

I had a moment's consideration of doing it, but decided against it, but we did stay and watch for awhile.  The plunge at this site was approximately 50 meters, or about 150 feet towards a river.  I thought it was ridiculously high, but apparently there is another bungee operation on another bridge that is 150 meters, or about 450 feet that some guys from my bus did later in the trip.  

Me at the Bungee Jump

We arrived at our hostel (also a Base hostel- like I stayed at in Christchurch) and it was remarkably nice- maybe one of the nicer hostels I've stayed in.  I shared a room with Jordan, the British girls, Claire-the French girl and the two German guys.  I finally rid myself of the older sisters who basically sucked. Skins arranged for us all to go to Winnie's that night a pizza place that is notable for two primary reasons.  First, the place is really cool- great pizza, good little scene, and they have this incredible roof that will open up on nice days/evenings.  They opened it up while we were there for a while.  The second notable thing is that this is the place where my good friends Mick O'Grady and Emily Bush (now O'Grady), whose wedding I attended last year in Jackson, Mississippi, first met. 

Winnie's Roof

After dinner, we went to a few bars in the town.  This was probably the night I drank the most on this trip, since I wasn't really doing anything but hanging out in Queenstown the following day.  The bar we ended at was swarming with people for a Sunday night.  As it turned out, it was because there were 70 students from the University of Delaware in town on a school trip and they basically took over the bar.  Jordan, the British sisters, Claire, the Germans, and myself sat at a table for a long time playing a drinking game called Fuzzy Duck, which was new to me, but mainly consists of you trying to stay Fuzzy Duck or Ducky Fuzz the whole time, but you inevitably end up screwing it up and inadvertently dropping an F-bomb.    

One other item of interest (at least to me) from this night, was earlier in the night, I was getting a drink and overheard two girls talking to each other that clearly had American accents, so I introduced myself to them.  They were from Kansas City, and after a bit of chatting, discovered that one of the two girls was the sister of a guy I knew at Notre Dame from the tennis team named Casey Smith, and we knew a lot of the same people, including a guy I used to work with.  Small world.  When I travel, whether it be in the U.S. or abroad, I've found that I almost always run into someone I know.  While I didn't actually know this girl, that was as close as I got on this trip.