We said goodbye to the North Island as we flew from Christchurch to Queenstown, and it was abundantly clear we’d be entering a vastly different landscape in this second part of our journey. Jungle-like, tropical hills and flat acres of farmland were replaced by soaring jagged mountains, deep canyons, and expansive lakes and water channels cutting through lush forests of very tall trees. We saw Queenstown from the air, perched at one end of a massive lake – it was breathtaking.
The way I’d describe Queenstown is “Whistler (BC) on steroids”…it’s an outdoor, adventure-driven scene clearly geared to a young, athletic population and tourist trade, with both summer and winter sports and thrill experiences available in abundance. Skydiving, bungee jumping, luge rides, parasailing, jet boating, you name it – Queenstown has it. In the winter it apparently turns into a ski haven. All that said, we were in the company of thousands of Chinese tourists of all ages – apparently this is being seen all over New Zealand now.
There are tons of cafes and restaurants that dot the waterfront streets and the food is uniformly good to great. You could find nearly any type of ethnic food and all types of prescriptive diets (gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, paleo, you name it) were easily accommodated. Our favorite little find was a place called “Rehab” – hysterical when we asked our Google Maps buddy to direct us there and he said “To get to rehab….” This was a real hole-in-the-wall that served great vegetarian bowls and smoothies to die for.
We stayed in a studio Airbnb just on the outskirts of the central business district – a 15 minute walk to just about everything we needed. Other than the home exchange we did outside Auckland and the bike tour accommodations, we stayed in Airbnbs and they were really good…always spotless with comfy beds and basic kitchen setups. No complaints there.
During our brief first stay in Queenstown (we split our time there with a side trip to Milford Sound in between), we were lucky to meet up with the son of a new friend we’d made through our Patient Power work. Hamish is in his early twenties and is a jet boat driver. He and his girlfriend met us for breakfast one morning and arranged for us to ride with him on our return to the city a few days later. They gave us some suggestions of other activities we could do while there and all of them turned out to be terrific – more on those later.
One thing we did in our first stay was to drive out to Glenorchy – a small town with a general store and many hiking trail heads close-by. We’d been told about one hike in particular to Lake Sylvan, so we packed a picnic lunch and got ourselves to the trail head. There was a hanging bridge you had to cross to get onto the wooded path and I can honestly say those things kick my vertigo into high gear.
During our whole trip we did a few walk/hikes and – as with others – this one was a perfect setting for quiet introspection as well as acknowledgement that New Zealanders understand the crucial need to preserve and protect their natural surroundings. I found myself wondering what impact global warming will ultimately have on this distant paradise…they already have a big hole in the ozone layer (hence the need for lots of sunscreen lest you burn terribly)…it will be incredibly tragic if we are the cause of irreparable damage to a place with this much magnificent beauty.
Living La Vida Loca 