A Right Royal Time
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2007
1
69
97
Trip End
Aug 24, 2008
Loading Map
Queenstown,
South Island,
New Zealand
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Oh, but this one was fun.
The initial directions were quite clear, then we got to a turning that looked like it was in the right place, but was unmarked. That eventually led to a, dark, incredibly bumpy track which was about four times longer than the directions suggested. Eventually, we came to a fork in the road, so continued on the track that didn't have 'Private, No Entry' signs on it for several more kilometres, before eventually spotting what looked to be a lake. We crossed our fingers in the hope that it was Moke Lake, which the campsite was named after and alongside. It turned out that it was. All of this in the dark, after a long drive. What a laugh.
We found a spot and set up camp, made a quick bite to eat and headed to bed. In the morning, we got to see just how narrow and precarious the track we had navigated in the dark the previous night was.
Driving into Queenstown, we decided that it would be nice to spend an evening in the town, so we drove to one of the campsites and checked in for the evening. Jacob went to check e-mail whilst Kirsty went off to organise things for Jacob's approaching thirtieth birthday. Once we met up again, we did a little bit of research and found an optician in Queenstown, so drove out to where they were.
We spoke to the receptionist, who was in the process of setting up the office as the place had only just opened. She was extremely helpful and seemed to think that there would be no problems in ordering a new contact lens for Jacob.
Then it was back to Queenstown centre for a game of Frisbee Golf! You may remember that we had been introduced to the sport of Frisbee Golf whilst in Vancouver. Queenstown was the first place in New Zealand to have a dedicated, permanently marked out course. We had asked at tourist information where we might be able to buy discs, but had been directed to a toy shop selling standard Frisbees, which, although would have worked, wouldn't have been quite the same.
However, whilst Kirsty had been looking for birthday stuff for Jacob, she had encountered a shop selling proper Golf Frisbees. She debated getting a set for Jacob's birthday but decided that we wouldn't have much chance to use them that way. We had visited the shop before going to the optician and invested in a putter and a driver each.
The golf course was in a park (to which the hitcher we had just picked up helpfully directed us), at the top of a hill, running parallel to the shore of a lake. Inevitably, we soon were in the lake, retrieving Frisbees which had landed slightly off course, rolled down the hill and gone for a swim. We were pretty bad, although Jacob managed to score reasonably close to par on most holes. We were behind a fairly large group of guys who were drinking Midori ("the quintessential golfing beverage") as a forfeit for scoring highest on each hole. They let us play through, but only on the condition that we each had a shot of the green stuff (green: maybe that's the golfing connection...) and that there would be another shot if they caught us up again.
It didn't help Jacob's play, but Kirsty found that she was suddenly a better shot.
Jacob eventually won, but the victory wasn't exactly emphatic.
That evening, we ate at the unusually named FergBurger. They started out in 2001 down a backstreet with a couple of gas barbecues they bought from Warehouse, New Zealand's cheapy shop of choice. They were very well received, and now have a bigger premises on Shotover Street, the main drag, serving huge (requiring at least three hands to operate), freshly prepared burgers from locally sourced ingredients: the meat, the veg, the bread, everything. McDonalds don't do very good business in Queenstown. The Hard Rock rolled down its shutters and left. Everybody loves a FergBurger.
Jacob had a 'Sweet Bambi' (wild venison with plum sauce), Kirsty had falafel. Falafel which rejoices under the name of 'Bun Laden'. Oh yes. A very silly place, but very good food. A few jars of the cold and foaming and a few games of pool in a nearby pub later, we wandered back to the campsite.
The next day was not really of any great note - we decided to get some writing done, and spent most of our time in the town's cheapest internet cafe, typing. Not very interesting to write or to read about. Moving on...
We drove out to Twelve Mile Delta, a DOC site which, although further from town than Moke Lake where we stayed on the first night, was a damn sight easier to find, and whose approach didn't involve several miles of unsigned rutted dirt track. We had intended to get in a quick game of What The Bloody Hell Do You Mean? as had become standard when navigating to DOC sites, but this one was next to the road, exactly where it was supposed to be. We were a little suspicious at first, but no, we had found the right place. Secluded, with shady tree cover and lakeshore views, we were definitely onto a winner.
The following day, having made our way back into Queenstown and consequent mobile phone coverage, we received a message from the optician who needed some more details about Jacob's lens. We drove out to the retail park where the optician was based and gave the information to the receptionist, who was called either Ginny or Jenny, depending on how strong a Kiwi accent she may have had. We never managed to be quite certain.
A few more errands run, the afternoon was almost upon us, so we had a bite to eat and decided to walk up Bob's Peak, the mountain (well, big hill - 446 metres) at the foot of which Queenstown sits. There is a 'Skyline Gondola' which has been running up it since 1967, but it was a nice day, we fancied the walk and didn't much fancy the price.
The 'chalet' (sprawling modern complex of conference facilities, restaurants and shops) is not necessarily what you want to find at the top of a mountain, but they did have one attraction we rather enjoyed. There are two luge tracks, each 800m long, one gentler and the other faster and more challenging. We had three rides each - they insist that the first is on the gentle slope, but the other two were on the faster slope - in the silly little three-wheeled plastic go-cart style 'luges'. Daft, but quite exhilarating.
After taking some photographs of the views, we made our way back down the hill to the van. We decided to be lazy and indulgent so bought a pre-roasted chicken and a pot of coleslaw for tea. Armed with these, we made our way back to Twelve Mile Delta, where we were able to camp in the same spot as the previous night and thus enjoy the view while we ate our disappointing chicken.
The following morning, we had a bit of a slow start. After a swim in the lake, which was bracing, we did a bit of admin - e-mail and suchlike - then decided to go for a round or two of Frisbee Golf. The first few holes were going well, with both of us scoring better than we had on our previous attempt. We then got to a hole where Jacob had a disastrous time, his disc veering to the right and rolling down hill into the lake a couple of times. Kirsty had been doing OK and the scores were starting to even up, when her disc also started rolling. Chasing after it, so as to catch it before it ended up in the lake, she realised the folly of running full pelt down a steep hill in sandals. Her ankle turned sideways with a sickening crunch. Crap.
It was some time before she could even think about trying to stand, much less put weight on the thing. In the end Jacob carried her off the course to a bench, where she sat for a while to try and assess what might have happened and whether it was going to need medical attention. Jacob went to finish his round of golf (at Kirsty's insistence) and by the time he got back, she was just about able to hobble around putting a small amount of weight on the bad ankle.
Kirsty was absolutely determined that her ankle couldn't be broken and, furthermore, that it would be fine in two days, because she knew what we were going to be doing for Jacob's birthday and that it would definitely involve not being in a plaster cast.
We drove back into town and got some ingredients from the supermarket and a bottle of wine from the liquor store, then headed back to Twelve Mile Delta for the evening. We managed to secure our usual spot, but had to drive into it through a different set of trees, as our usual route was blocked by a couple of Winnebagos.
Whilst we were cooking up a feast of garlic mushrooms and spicy bean stew later, the occupants of the two Winnebagos walked past on their way to visit the occupants of two other Winnebagos parked the other side of us. It turned out that the four vans were touring around New Zealand together, containing four Australian siblings and their families. They got chatting to us for a while and occasionally stole our mushrooms.
In the morning, we had another message from Jenny/Ginny from the opticians saying that Jacob's lens was in, so we drove over there to collect it. We had already decided to have a relatively easy day as Kirsty was still hobbling quite badly, but we managed to get in a couple of games of ten pin bowling (which Jacob won), some air hockey (which Kirsty won) and a round of mini-golf (which Jacob won, although only just). We also did a bit more TravelPod, staying up until quite late at night, so Kirsty could call her Mum at a sensible time in the UK to wish her a Happy Birthday. Late, tired, we headed back to Twelve Mile Delta for a bite to eat and bed.
The following morning, Jacob woke up old. Somehow, he'd become thirty. It was a good excuse for a celebration though and Kirsty had a variety of tricks up her sleeve.
We started the day by driving into town. Jacob took the van to the town campsite where we had stayed a few nights previously. We intended to spend the night in town, as we didn't plan on being sober enough to drive. Meanwhile, Kirsty went off to be mysterious, but unfortunately had to walk past the pub where Jacob was sitting outside, sunning himself, drinking an appallingly mixed Bloody Mary (he had to tell the barman how to make one) and waiting for our breakfasts to arrive. He couldn't really fail to notice the cake box that Kirsty was trying to hide.
Next, it was present time. The main present was the day's activity, which Jacob decided that he didn't want to know about in advance, but he appreciated the stripy socks which Kirsty had bought at Nelson market and the collection of sweets which she had found in an old-fashioned sweet shop in Queenstown. Jacob has a taste for what Kirsty charmingly refers to as 'crap sweets', so although the bag of Danish salted liquorice he received may have seemed to anyone else to be more of a punishment than a gift, he was very impressed.
After a full-English type breakfast with the terrible New Zealand excuse for sausages (and a sorry but predictable lack of black pudding) and a Happy Birthday phone call from Jacob's mum, we went to the Central Otago Wine Experience. This was a wine tasting shop with a large range of bottles, mostly Kiwi and Australian, ranging from the cheap and cheerful to the three-figure price tag. They operate the 'Enomatic' system: the bottle is opened, fitted into a sealed machine which ensures a controlled amount of 'breathing', and has a metered, push-button operated pump system so the customers can read the tasting notes and serve themselves without having to coo appreciatively to the person who's just served them. You can get either a 'taste', a half or a full glass, all done by inserting a card, with the option to either pay at the end or pre-load the card with a set value so you don't get silly as the booze loosens your wallet.
We tasted a fairly wide variety of wines, mostly red. Of particular note was the Fromm Fromm Shiraz; from the Marlborough region of New Zealand and laden with rich black peppery flavours.
Slightly tipsy, we just had time for a quick pie before the main event of the day. It became hard to hide the secret any more; the van had 'SkyTrek Hang-Gliding' painted down the side of it and a bunch of hang-gliders strapped to the roof rack.
Queenstown is the adrenalin-sports capital of New Zealand, if not the world. Although David Attenborough brought back footage from Pentecost Island, Vanuatu in the 1950s of 'land divers' jumping from wooden platforms with vines tied to their ankles (a fairly intense test of courage), and modern bungee jumping started with Oxford University's fantastically named Dangerous Sports Club jumping from Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol on April Fool's Day 1979, commercial bungee jumping has its home here in Queenstown. This is the site of the first permanent commercial bungee rig, opened in 1988.
There are numerous other ways on offer to move unnaturally rapidly through a variety of different environments, skirting as close as possible to drastic injury whilst still managing to come away unscathed. Rafting, jet-boating, downhill mountain-biking, off-road motorcycling, sky diving, paragliding, a weird kind of body-boarding/rafting hybrid in which you launch yourself down the rapids clinging to a large floating plank...Queenstown is where you go if you want to feel like you might die.
Now, the name 'hang-gliding' doesn't have the same sort of extreme-sports caché as, say, base jumping, but think about it for a minute. You run off the edge of a cliff holding on to a large kite then (hopefully) soar through the air like a bird. That could be considered 'extreme'. Anyway, extreme or not, Jacob has wanted to do it since he was a kid. For many years, his dad was a National Park Warden, and part of the area he generally tended to patrol was the Hole of Horcum, a bloody great hole in the ground in North Yorkshire, off the edge of which hang-glidey types would launch themselves. Jacob, out with his dad at weekends would be fascinated; a fascination he had harboured, unrealised, through to adulthood.
Kirsty, as soon as it became clear that we would be in Queenstown for the big 3-0, decided we would go a-soaring. She was secretly a bit miffed when Jacob started talking about how cool hang-gliding would be in the week beforehand, as she had managed to think of the ideal present without the need for any hints and now it looked as though she was just getting him what he'd asked for!
She had selected SkyTrek as they were licenced to use more launch sites than anybody else, which meant we were a bit less at the mercy of the weather - if one site was too windy, another may have been OK. Nevertheless, she spent the week quietly fretting about the possibility of a storm. The day before had been kind of rainy...
We were blessed with clear skies, and were driven up to the top of a local mountain, across the valley from the Remarkables. On the way there was a Happy Birthday phone call from our friend Charlotte, which began with a verse of "You're old and you know you are!" which was, of course, a great comfort.
We had three pilots, and the other three folks who were flying went first. We waited and watched a load of paragliders launching from the same site - looks pretty good fun too. It's considerably more portable as well, but there's something about hang-gliding though, the idea of stretching out beneath your wings which seems more like 'real' flight. The instructor guys (who did both) told us that hang-gliding is a much better way to fly: faster, more controllable, and generally allowing much more time in the air.
Considering the enormity of what we were about to do, the briefing was disconcertingly...well, brief. After being shown how to lie down (!) and how to run (again, !), there was nothing more to do than to go for a flight. So we did. Kirsty's ankle was still knackered, but she was determined to fly so tried not to wince as she and her instructor ran to the edge of the hill. The idea is to keep running as long as you can, even when it feels like you're taking off, to get as much speed - and therefore lift - as possible. Kirsty knew this, and knew she had to grit her teeth and bear it, but her ankle, lacking such knowledge (and, indeed, teeth), gave up, leaving her instructor and her right ankle to three-legged-race them into the sky.
Jacob, being taught how to lie down in a large, tightly strapped nylon apron, missed all this. Then it was his turn.
The feeling of gliding, after the initial "Christ!" moment - and it is just a moment - of launch, is absurdly natural. There is nothing at all natural about dangling in a harness beneath a big triangle of aluminium and nylon, hundreds of feet above the valley floor, but really, as soon as you're there, the weirdness of the concept vanishes, replaced by a really, really big smile.
Our pilots knew a fair bit about the local area, and were able to point out swooping birds, running deer, rapidly approaching trees and the like. They could have kept quiet to be honest, the feeling of flight was good enough on its own. When we did converse, it was strange how normally we could talk - no shouting over the wind, no inflating of mouths as we rushed through the air, just chatting. This beautiful quiet was part of the magic.
The landing is fantastic. The glider is more stable and controllable at higher speeds, so the standard technique on approach to the landing site is to 'corkscrew' around, gathering momentum, before aiming for the ground, which comes up to meet you very rapidly. This rapidity is somewhat accentuated by your nose being somewhere in the region of an inch from the deck as you trundle to a halt. Trundle to a halt on wheels which would not look out of place on, say, a pushchair.
"Oh, it's not at all addictive" grinned one of the instructors as we gushed about how fantastic it had been. As is now standard with this sort of thing, there was the option of buying a CD of photos and video footage taken during our flights. We decided we'd get both our discs, and the guys said that we could have them both for the price of one, as it was Jacob's birthday. Which was nice.
Back in Queenstown, we checked our e-mail (you don't get birthday cards through the door when you live in a van on the other side of the world) before returning to camp, to shower and put on the gladdest rags we had for the evening.
We started with 'minus5°', a bar made entirely of ice, where they serve drinks in ice-glasses and provide the clientele with enormous parkas and gloves. You don't just wander in, groups are taken in for half-hour visits, with your entry ticket entitling you to one cocktail at the bar. The drinks were pretty much all vodka based (often the way with trendy bars), and quite a high proportion of them seemed to involve passion fruit pulp. They didn't seem to serve Smirnoff Ice though...
Apparently, the vastly reduced temperature (actually -7° according to the thermometer) increases the intoxicant effect of the booze, so one drink is equivalent to three. We weren't sure how true this really was. It may have been the cold, it may just have been that we hadn't eaten a great deal that day - and indeed that Jacob started the day with a Bloody Mary before going wine tasting - but having left, we wobbled our way to Bunker.
Bunker is a little restaurant down a back street which we'd never have found if we hadn't read about it in a tourist guide, and it's great. We'd had a nose around town a few days previously, checking restaurants and menus to see where might be nice, and this place looked worth a try.
Another Bloody Mary (this time expertly constructed) and a free 'Jam Doughnut' (a raspberry and chocolate shooter) when the barman heard it was Jacob's birthday, and we were led to our table. We had actually been given a table in the less attractive upstairs bit of the restaurant, but Kirsty fluttered her eyelashes and pointed out that we were there for a big celebratory meal, and we were moved to the apparently 'full' downstairs dining room. Worth knowing. Birthdays, anniversaries and honeymoons may happen a little more frequently in future.
We started with paté (Jacob) and crab soup (Kirsty), then Jacob had lamb and Kirsty had belly pork. The lamb was very good, but we both agreed that the pork was the star of the show. We mentioned this to the waiter, who was glad that we had enjoyed it, as he said that a lot of people don't seem to understand the belly pork and complain that it is too fatty. Belly pork, by its nature, is fatty, but this was beautifully cooked, with the meat juicy and tender and the crackling crisp and golden. We washed it all down with a bottle of Lake Chalice, which was one of the vineyards we had visited in Renwick.
A Cognac and an Amaretto later, at which we sipped whilst watching a group of people with far more money than manners snobbing it up over their Champagne, Kirsty took one more visit to the swanky toilet to appreciate the opulence. There was a shelf above the sink, stacked with rolls of small, soft towels, which you used and discarded into the wicker basket beside the sink on your way out. It doesn't take that much to impress Kirsty.
We went back to the campsite and brewed up a cafetière of coffee and set about Jacob's birthday cake. Lighting thirty candles - indeed, fitting thirty candles on it - may have been a bit of a pain, so Kirsty had bought a three and a zero and had done with it. There hadn't been much choice at the one bakery in Queenstown who would provide iced special-occasion cakes, so this one was Mississippi Mud Cake, the other option having been carrot. Carrot cakes are all well and good, but not exactly indulgent.
Kirsty had had to wait for a while at the bakery when collecting the cake that morning. She now was able to tell Jacob why it had taken so long. Despite having organised the cake with the bakery several days in advance and arranged to pick it up at 10am, when she arrived, there had been a bit of a panic. The head baker had come to the counter and removed a Mud Cake, then hurried off to the back, brandishing an icing bag. It turned out that there were two cake orders due for collection that morning, and the messages to be iced onto them had been mixed up. Jacob's cake read "Happy 30th Birthday Marilyn". Unfortunately, we didn't get to find out what Marilyn's cake had iced on it. Anyway, the cake was very tasty. It having been a cake from the display cabinet rather than a 'blank canvas', it had already been iced once before our message had been put on it. The extra layer of frosting made it a bit richer, but a bugger to cut into.
So, booze and fried goods for breakfast. Check.
Bags of sweets. Check.
Wine. Check.
Pies. Check.
Adrenalin fuelled jumping-off-a-cliff and flying type excitement. Check.
Dressing up in our finery. Check.
Out for cocktails. Check.
Fancy meal at one of the better tables in a fancy restaurant. Check.
Big gooey cake. Check.
That'll be a birthday then.
