Staying in Luxury!

Trip Start Jan 24, 2009
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Trip End Dec 08, 2009


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Flag of New Zealand  , South Island,
Saturday, June 13, 2009

The plan was to fly directly into Queenstown following a short 3 hour hop across the Tasman Sea from Sydney - well, that was the plan. As the plane approached Queenstown, we had a magnificent view of the Southern Alps and the Remarkable Mountains with their snow capped peaks jutting upwards into the clear blue skies. The problem was that the clear blue skies were everywhere across the South Island apart from Lake Wakatipu on whose shore Queenstown is situated. There was a thick blanket of fog sitting about 300 feet above the lake meaning we were about to experience the pleasure of being diverted to Christchuch and enduring a 9 hour bus journey back to Queenstown. Not the start to New Zealand that we had hoped for!

We finally arrived in Queenstown just after midnight. Thankfully, we had already booked 3 nights accommodation over the internet. Our plan was to splash out - spending the princley fee of 60 pound a night as a treat and to use it to rest up for a few days following the campervan experience (though we still miss it really) Hank and the Remarkables
Hank and the Remarkables
 . What can we say? We struck lucky big time with the room and ended up staying 8 nights.

In fact it wasn't a room, more like a luxury one bedroom apartment with a huge patio area outside overlooking the lake, with "killer" views of The Remarkable Mountains. It had a gigantic living area including a huge kitchen, dining area and a couple of large settees with the obligatory 42 inch flat screen TV mounted above the fire. To say Louise was happy was a slight understatement! Personally, I'm more of a campervan type of bloke.......but the electric blankets were good!

So what do you do in Queenstown for 8 days? Well, we slept a lot, ate a lot and watched loads of DVDs. We can recommend "Burn After Reading", "Into The Wild"...the list goes on.

When we eventually ventured out we did make good use of the mountains. The snowboarding on Coronet Peak was absolutely brilliant. I reckon it was about 6 years since I last went boarding and the 40 year old knees thankfully didn't let me down....I can still show the youngsters a thing or two! The snowboarding fashion stakes seem to have been upped several notches however as every boarder under the age of 20 these days seems to be dressing like a court jester in the most bizarre attire....maybe I am afterall getting too old for it?

Spent a day climbing on The Remarkables going up a peak called Single Cone with "Bruce" the mountain guide The Snowboarder
The Snowboarder
 . You can see why they get their name as they are truly remarkable. Single Cone juts out at over 7000 feet above sea level. Getting to it meant an 8am start, donning snow shoes, ski poles, and an avalanche transponder (just in case either myself or Bruce sneezed at the wrong moment). Eventually, the snow shoes were changed for crampons, a couple of ice axes and some ropes to get up the last couple of hundred feet. The experience of stepping out onto an 18 inch ledge with a 2000 foot sheer drop below you certainly makes you focus! Hard going, though the effort was worth it, the views are as good as anything I've ever experienced before in the mountains and the buzz of scrambling across rock faces at that height definitely awakens the senses.

Eventually Louise surfaced from her luxury pad and was enticed out onto the hills for several walks, amongst others - srambling up Ben Lomond which sits behind Queenstown. Yep, it was at times very cold on the hills but the air was fresh and the views justified the yomp across the frosty ground.

We travelled across to a couple of the local twons to see what the deal was with Arrowtown and Wanaka. Arrowtown was essentially a gold town from the mid 1800s which somehow has been preserved almost in a time warp. It looks like something straight out of a movie with a row of single story timber clad shops down the main street On Top!
On Top!
 . Really pretty little place and a nice antidote to the buzz of Queenstown for the day. 

One morning we woke up to find Queenstown fog bound again. Looking out of our luxurious pad across the patio we could see as far as ...well the end of the patio...out there was a marvellous view...honest. So we decided to get in the car and venture out to Wanaka which was about two hours drive across the top of the mountains. Driving on the mountain pass was a real "pea souper"; the roads twisted sharply with steep drops and someone had decided it would be a great idea to omit any crash barriers....at times pretty scary in the fog to be honest. However, quite surreally at about 400 feet above Queenstown we drove out of the fog into clear blue skies. It's the closest thing you can experience on a road to a plane flying up and out of the clouds. The views down across the fog bound valleys below were quite stunnning. 
 
Louise was eventually talked out of doing the world's highest bungee jump though we did get suckered into going on a jet boat up the Shotover River which was absolutely "baltic"...we looked at one another after a couple of minutes trying to decide who was more bored of the 19 year old spotty driving showing off spinning the jet boat. The guide books say this is a must...I reckon spending the money on a bungee would have been a better investment.

Queenstown is world-renowned for adventure and adrenaline activities and to be honest at times it feels like it's set up solely to take your cash from you quicker than the machine can dispense it.
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