After leaving Christchurch, the next place I stopped was Queenstown. Actually, the rest of my trip was based out of there, but I took a few mini road trips to various places.
Flying into Queenstown, I was a little disappointed because I was sitting on the wrong side of the plane to get the views, but as we approached the airport, there was some circling around, and I was able to get a look at some of the scenery. Some big lakes and beautiful mountains. I took a bit of video from the plane...
The first thing I had to do when I arrived was pick up my rental car. It turned out to be a little white Toyota Yaris. This was my first time to drive on the left side of the road, and while it's not so difficult it took a day or two to get used to. The thing I had the most problems with was the signal switch. It was on the opposite side of the wheel from what I am used to, so SO MANY TIMES I wanted to signal but ended up turning on the wipers instead. I also rented a GPS which was very helpful, but the instructions were occasionally confusing. Mostly in regards to roundabouts. They love roundabouts in New Zealand. Why, I don't know, but they are EVERYWHERE. There are even double lane roundabouts. Anyway, rather than telling me to go straight or left or right, the GPS was always like, "Take the 2nd exit and...." Well most of the time that meant go straight, but sometimes it meant turn right because there was no left turn exit. SO CONFUSING!! But I kind of got used to it. After many detours to get back to where I was actually supposed to be after taking the wrong exits.
Once I found my way to my accommodation, I decided to do a bit of exploring. I was staying right next to Lake Wakatipu, and there is a walking/biking path that goes along the edge, so I checked that out for a while and found a nice warm and sunny spot to figure out what to do next. Definitely a nice change from the chilly weather in Christchurch.
This is the view from where I stopped. Not too shabby.
The tall craggy mountains are what are called "The Remarkables"
You might not be able to see it, but there was a truck that got stuck in the lake. No idea how or why, but they couldn't get it out.
After dinner I went to the far side of the lake and got a little bit of sunshine. This was around 7 or 8pm. So nice to have sun in the evening.
Since I arrived in Queenstown on Christmas Eve, I knew many places would be closed the following day, so I decided to go to a restaurant for dinner that night. I got myself a seat in a sunny spot out on the patio looking out to the Remarkables (a mountain range), and then I noticed there was a very pretty and well behaved dog out there too. Now, if you know me, you know I like dogs, and so I couldn't help but to look at her. Then her human started talking to me. He was an older man (maybe in his 70s) and he started asking me questions about where I was from, where I'd been and so on. Eventually, he told me he needed to go get something from another store and asked if I could keep an eye on his dog (her name was Saska) while he did that. I was quite surprised, but you know, dogs... When he came back he started talking to me more, and since it was kind of strange and hard to talk being at different tables, he and Saska came and joined me at my table. While I ate my dinner we had a very interesting conversation. He asked me about my travels and life and so on, and he told me about himself, apparently he had been a poet and did some photography (I actually googled him and found an article after I got back home). He also gave me some suggestions about places around Queenstown that would be nice to visit. One place he highly recommended was driving out to Glenorchy and Paradise. That turned out to be one of my favorite drives, but I will probably give it its own post. That being said, I am going to write separate posts for each of the various small trips that I took. Mainly so I can show you more photos without it being a total photo overload. hehehe.
If you want to read the article I found, I'm posting the link to it HERE. It's quite interesting. As an aside, when I searched for this article again to put in the link, there were quite a few new links to his name. Death notices. Apparently he passed away on January 12. That's really too bad, I would have liked to say thank you for the advice he gave me.
On Christmas itself, I didn't really do so much. I was quite tired and not really ready to try driving on the left side for anything more than a quick trip to the store. So, since it was absolutely beautiful weather, I took my book and found a nice place by the lake to read for a while. After that, I ended up walking the 7.5km along the lake into Queenstown (I was actually staying outside of the city). Also, apparently from what I could see, it is the New Zealand thing to hang by the lake with friends/family and drink or drink at the beach. There is one small beach in Queenstown, and from what I could see as I walked by, there was no space to move, it was so packed, and it seemed like everyone was drinking and there were police everywhere. Not really my idea of fun. I wandered around for a bit but, being Christmas not much was open, so I headed back relatively soon after. When I got back to my room for the night, I had a little visitor at my door. He was very curious about what was going on.
Christmas reading view
Queenstown Gardens
My little visitor
I'm telling you, he was so curious. Click here for the link.
Fast forward to New Years Day. (The rest of the days will have their own post). It was my last day in New Zealand, as I was leaving early the next morning. I had originally had other plans for the day, but the weather was cloudy and it tried raining on and off throughout the day, so I had to change my plans. I ended up staying in Queenstown, which I hadn't done since the start of my time here. I started the day doing a little hike up "Queenstown Hill" which although called a hill, had an elevation of about 900m. The first part of the hike wasn't so interesting, just walking up through the forest, but eventually you reach a clearing and get to the "Basket of Dreams". From there, you can take the path up to the summit and you get some really nice views. I had been considering taking the gondola (the next mountain over) to get some views, but I think this was better. It was higher up, free, and probably less crowded!
If you can't read it, click on the picture. Basically it says Queenstown Hill is sacred.
This is the "Basket of Dreams"
View from part way up the hill
Don't let this deceive you. It's steeper than it looks.
So colorful and pretty
Airplane over the Remarkables
Time to go back down...
I took a quick 360 from the top...if it doesn't work, click here.
After that hike, I went down into the city center. It took me quite a while to find somewhere to park, but when I did, I was pleasantly surprised to find that parking was free because it was New Years. Lucky! Guess if I was going to be spending time in the city, that was the day to do it! I say city, but to be honest, it is more like a town. It is not so big at all. The city center area is constantly packed with people, going into the shops, lining up outside restaurants, stopping at the offices of the many tour companies, and so on. I skipped over most of that and went to the Kiwi Birdlife Park. The entrance price was a bit steep at $55 to get in, but most things in New Zealand are quite pricey, so not much you can do. I also wanted to go here because the last time I was in New Zealand, I wasn't able to see kiwi because the places to do so were only accessible by car. When I went in, they had a conservation talk and bird and other animals show. Apparently it was also a special day at that park because it was the anniversary of the death of the man who built it. During the show I ended up with a Japanese couple sitting next to me (the first time in NZ!), and the wife was talking (in Japanese) about how she didn't really know where to go or what the area we were sitting in was for and seemed overall confused. So...I started talking to her in Japanese. I asked her if she needed any help and answered a couple questions for her. She was quite surprised to find this foreigner speaking in Japanese to her, and had to ask the usual questions about why I was able to do so. She also asked me the name of a couple animals during the show since they were talking too quickly for her to catch. After the show, everyone went into the kiwi houses, as they were going to feed their kiwis so that it would be easier for everyone to catch a glimpse of them. If you don't know, kiwis are nocturnal, and so it was very dark inside, pictures were not allowed, and you had to be as quiet as possible. I was able to see them, and I was kind of surprised at how large they were. For some reason I was expecting them to be very small, but they're actually a good size. I wandered around the rest of the bird park for a bit before going to Cookie Time.
It's a possum. They hate them in NZ, and try to get rid of them. Very different from Australia where they're protected.
Lorikeet. So many of these in Australia. Very pretty but so loud.
This is a Kea. Doesn't look like much here, but under its wings is orange and green. They're super smart too.
I'm not sure if this bird actually belonged here or not...
Cookie Time is a famous cookie store in New Zealand, and their selling point is that you get warm cookies. There are quite a few types, and you can also get ice-cream sandwiches, ice-cream (cookie flavors), milkshakes, sundaes, and so on. I really wanted cookies, but I ended up going for the Giant cookie ice-cream sandwich. You got to choose the type of cookies you wanted them to use and then you chose your ice-cream. They put about 4 scoops of ice-cream in it. After the second scoop, I wanted to tell them to stop, but they didn't. I could not eat it all. Super overload. Should have gone for the mini one, but then your only choice of cookies is chocolate chip. But since that's what I used anyway...oh well, never learn until you try.
So big. So much sugar.
I had one final adventure before leaving...On the 2nd, my flight back to Japan was at 6:40am, and so I got to the airport around 4. Unfortunately, what I didn't know was that the airport didn't open until 5 and you can't start the check in process until 5:20. I was not so happy. Especially because it was raining and I'd already dropped off the keys to my rental car, so I couldn't do anything but wait by the doors. Eventually staff started coming in, and a couple of them took pity on me, and let me go through the doors with them so I could at least go inside and sit down to wait.
First time to see a sign at the airport telling you to relax.
I'll be posting more about the rest of my mini-trips soon! Look forward to it!
Oh, also random piece of information: this has been my 100th blog post!
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