Queenstown is sometimes compared to Lake Tahoe because of the lake, and the mix of winter (skiing) and summer (boating) activities. But the comparison doesn’t do justice to Queenstown. The lake is more magnificent, the mountains truly dramatic (they’re called “The Remarkables” for a reason) and Queenstown is the (self-)declared capital of adventure sports. This is the place where bungee-jumping originated and you can see scores of paragliders above the town all day. We even saw a combo parasail (dragged behind a boat in a parachute) bungee jump. Now that sounds like a bad idea!

So we arrived from the Franz Josef Glacier at the Queenstown House just in time for wine and cheese. This place is one of the top two accomodation finds of our whole trip! It was a wonderful place to end our visit to New Zealand and provided us with great service and all the creature comforts that we could ask for. After getting settled in and having wine and cheese (and blogging some of our previous days) we walked down the hill to the downtown mall for dinner at Dux Deluxe.

After dinner we decided to go to the ice bar “minus 5” just down the street. This was an worthwhile experience, but I’m not sure I’d go back again. For a $25NZ entry fee, we donned our long warm coats and gloves and about 15 of us filed into a 15 x 30 foot icecube. The rebuild the room once a month, and everything is made our of ice, the tables, chairs, and even the cups, which you can smash after you’re done drinking. The environs provided ample opportunity for clowning around with the ice sculptures and greg even did a vodka shot straight from the queen’s mouth!

Friday morning we got up to a scrumptious breakfast and then walked into town to do some looking around and shopping. We got quite caught up in the merino wool activewear products that are made by Icebreaker… they have some pretty sweet stuff that is comfortable, warm and never smells (which is useful for me) even after multiple days use.

We had a quick lunch at Fergburger before heading over to the Queenstown airport to meet Matt Gibbons (son of my Godfather David Gibbons) to do a flying tour of the surrounding mountains and part of the Fjordland national park including the Milford Sound. Matt was the best host and took us up in a Cessna (8-seater) to head up around the southern alps and onto the Milford Sound. The flight was truly a remarkable way to see the mountains, we flew between them over glaciers and impossibly steep faces (all those Lord of the Rings scenes were not CGI – well except for the forts and palaces!) and saw some picture-perfect hanging lakes with waterfalls cascading down the incredibly green mountainsides.

We landed at the Milford Sound airport after the 45 minute flight and Matt handed us off to one of the cruise liners that took us on a cruise down the sound. The ship’s captain was quite fearless in piloting his 100 foot boat within 10 feet of the sheer rock faces (because the water continues straight down at the shore). He took the front of the boat under some of the waterfalls that were dotted around the coast and pointed out the tree-falls – which is where one tree decides to fall because of too much water, or snow and drags a whole swath of interlaced trees and vegetation down the side of the mountain.
The captain also informed us that Milford Sound is actually a fjord. The difference between the two is that a Sound if formed by a river and is V-shaped, whereas a fjord is formed by a glacier and is U-shaped. The fjordlands are a product of the many glaciers that used to stretch more than 50 miles out to sea melting and the sea water filling in the void. This is also the end-point of the Milford track which by all accounts is one of the most amazingly breathtaking treks in the world, and something we will be returning to do soon I hope!

When the cruise returned, Matt took us back to Queenstown on the plane by finishing our loop south over the Fjordlands. In time for wine and cheese! This time we all made it to the soiree and met some of the other guests to hear about their exploits in New Zealand. Over a few glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir we tried to figure out where to go for dinner. We asked our hostess Louise for any recommendation and in 5 minutes flat she got us a backdoor reservation at “Captains” which turned out to have delcious food and great service… we felt like princes and princess of the town! After dinner we stomped back up the hill sadly to spend our last night in Queenstown.

Saturday we got up and packed our accumulation of purchases on top of our already excessive packing and finally got done by 11:30. Matt called us shortly thereafter to say that flights for the day were cancelled due to weather and that we could meet for lunch as he had suggested the previous day. We met Matt and Emily (looking radiant at 7+ months pregnant) for lunch at Winnies where they serve some very interesting but delicious pizzas (cranberry chicken and brie anyone?) It was great to catch properly with them and it made us even sadder to leave!

Aft
er lunch we did some final gift shopping and then got our taxi to the airport. As we were driving into the airport, Mandy looked out the window and saw Matt standing on his door step (he lives in one of the air traffic controllers houses right next to the airport), and he happened to look up and see us too! Emily and Matt walked over and joined us in the lounge while we waited for our flight to Christchurch (security is a little less paranoid in New Zealand). We sadly parted company when our flight was called and reflected on our whole trip. We stored 5 of our 6 pieces of checked luggage at the Christchurch airport and spent the night at the Chateau on the Park. We had a 7am flight to Sydney to catch so we didn’t stay up too late!

Sunday was the day of the 6 hour layover in Sydney. We wanted to go into town to do some sightseeing, but we would have had to get an entry visa and pay the departure tax and $100 each didn’t seem like a good value at the time. Luckily we had Greg and his Star Alliance gold status that got us into the united red carpet club so we could at least check email and have some free drinks and food. The United flight back to San Francisco was much more painful than the Air New Zealand flight to Auckland (remind me to avoid the american carriers internationally whereever I have a choice), but we sailed through customs and even met our next door neighbors Bernie and Sonja and Jenna in the waiting area for the flight home!

We picked up Lola before closing time and vegged out a bit that evening watching TV and enjoying the comforts of home.