Wonder in Queenstown, NZ

Week 2 of our 3 week adventure to Thailand, New Zealand and Indonesia.

Our 4 back-to-back flights later, we landed in Queenstown, New Zealand. This leg of the trip was really the main reason why we booked this flight; Pete’s best friend Rob moved to New Zealand 5 years ago and he has only seen him once since then. We always said we would go and visit him and his girlfriend Simone, so when the flights popped up cheap we booked straight away.

We landed in Queenstown at night and Rob picked us up from the airport and took us straight to the new Lord of the Fries vegan take out which had recently opened up in the town. We took the burgers back to Rob’s flat and met Ziggy their adorable little ragdoll kitten!
We checked into our hotel room and, so far so normal. Apart from being pretty cold (even more so after 43 degree Thailand) New Zealand seemed strangely familiar. To be honest, we thought we’d just spend the next 3 days here chilling with Rob and Simone and going out to see a few sights…

When we woke the next morning, Rob picked us up and we saw Queenstown in the light for the first time… It’s so amazingly beautiful! Everywhere you look there are mountains and crystal clear lakes and rivers. We were really surprised just at how beautiful it was. Suddenly, we felt on holiday again.

We parked up near town and walked into Queenstown through the park, which is also home to some Sequoia or Redwood trees which were quite small really for their species. We met Simone for a quick coffee then headed up to the Skyline. Even the skyline ride was good, but the views from the top were better…

At the top, we found the Scenic Luge track. We wouldn’t normally do things like this and usually steer clear of traditional tourist hotspots, but actually we loved the luge, it was so fun and it certainly was scenic.

After about 5 rides on the Luge we had a bit of lunch before Pete took the plunge on the AJ Hackett Ledge Bungy! We’re not the type of people who are super into adrenaline stuff like bungy jumping, but Pete thought since it was kind of invented in New Zealand he should at least give it a go… He was so casual about the whole thing. If I wanted to do it I’d literally have to psyche myself up for it weeks in advance! lol

He said it wasn’t the most comfortable of experiences 😂 Rob and I managed to get some pretty cool videos and images though! So it was worth it for those!

After Pete had found his balls again, we had to rush back down the hill into Queenstown to catch the GoOrange Jet Boat which Simone had booked us on through work. We were so grateful to Rob and Simone for organising all these activities for us and just generally being awesome tour guides. Unlike the rest of our trip, I hadn’t really planned much for these days in Queenstown, so we just went with the flow…

The jet boat was a weird experience. Before arriving Simone had told us about this ‘jet boat’, we didn’t really know what it was or what the ‘trip’ entailed. After raising this with Rob and Simone they agreed that when they first moved over, they equally had no clue. But jet boats are super popular in New Zealand and you find them everywhere. They were originally designed by a New Zealand farmer as a means to get around his land as they can operate on just a few inches of water. It’s essentially a mash-up of a jet ski and a boat and all the ‘trip’ is is a local speeding about on a lake doing donuts and lots of sharp turns. The concept wouldn’t quite work on Hollingworth Lake I’d imagine, but in this stunning landscape on Lake Wakatipu with the Remarkables mountains as the backdrop, it was soooo good. At least for me… everyone else felt sick after the hour on the boat and we had to nip to the pharmacy to get some motion sickness tablets for everyone 😂

What an amazing day! And it was only our first of three days here!