The same day we finished the Kepler Track, we stumbled off the bus in downtown Queenstown and, heavily laden with our packs, hiked up a giant-ass hill to our Christmas holiday retreat. Based on some reviews, this was one place we were worried would be a bit of a hole but we were pleasantly surprised with the conditions. It was Christmas Eve and the woman working was not super happy that we were getting there at 7PM. But what can you do?
Turns out the place was pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty nice.
Queenstown is super awesome...if you are a 21-year old college kid on Spring break with a couple grand burning a hole in your pocket. There are bars everywhere, you can walk around drinking, or hang on the beach drinking, or drink in your hotel. Then, there are the attractions. They are more than willing to extract money from your account a couple hundred at a time. Like the shark-shaped submarine, Hydro Attack, and the jet boats, and skydiving, and paragliding, and bungee jumping. It’s definitely adult Disneyland. “Let’s slam some brewskis and go bungeerocketskydiving into the lake, bro!” is something that is probably overheard twice a day here.
I can drink on the beach or out in the sea or even do Jägerbombs under a tree.
And then we can visit Fear Factory: The Ride Experience and poop our pants.
Hydro Attack. A shark-shaped submarine that jumps out of the lake. Only $199 each for 20 minutes. 20 adrenaline infused, pulse pounding minutes!
We, however, are not 21-year old college students with a few grand to burn. Melissa made delicious ham and cheese and tomato and spicy mustard sandwiches for our Christmas Eve meal and we probably watched some crappy movie like The Bodyguard on TV.
We got crazy on Christmas Day though. We did some laundry, then had a picnic next to a pond in Queenstown Park. It got really insane when we sat down at the lawn bowling club and watched an older couple play a few rounds. We did have reservations for a nice meal that evening. Most places are booked well in advance for Christmas dinner in Queenstown, so the pickings were slim when we made our reservations only a month out.
The place we managed to get a seat in is called Jervois. I know what you are thinking, fancy French place, right? Wrong. It’s pronounced Ger-voice after the name of the street where the original restaurant is located. My French pronunciation of the name was not corrected by the front desk person when I asked where it was located. Thanks for nothing, lady. Or, thanks for making me look like a dimwit when I said the name to the host.
We both ate giant-ass pieces of meat.
The bathrooms were super classy though. This is in the Sofitel.
Three hours, seven courses, and a bottle of wine later, we were completely stuffed. It was good, not great, but way better than the freeze dried packs of food we had been consuming the whole week before. And we had leftovers for meat sandwiches!
Next to us was a table of Texans arguing loudly and often erroneously (as Americans are wont to do), about politics and U.S. history. I nearly got up and flipped their table over when the Oxford shirt wearing bro loudly proclaimed that one thing he learned growing up was that, “being white in America is the worst possible thing that you could be.” Needless to say, I was happy when they left. They were replaced by an Italian family who complained constantly about, well, everything. Their table wasn't right, the settings weren't right, the service wasn't fast enough, etc; The best part was when one of the ladies tried the wine they ordered, made a face like she was going to puke, then proclaimed that it was “good enough.” I laughed out loud.
That last paragraph was a bummer so here is a cat that lives where we stayed. Casper!
And Molly too! She was super friendly.
Over the next few days in Queenstown, we did several non-bro activities. We took a long walk up Queenstown Hill, which overlooks the whole town and lake. That was quite lovely though a tad hot. We rode the gondola to the top of something hill for a nice view of the Remarkables, the range of peaks across the valley. Going up there was fun mostly because they have an awesome luge track that you can ride down. My video game driving skills came in handy. We also watched a lady with her kid on the same luge slam into a wall going about 20 mph. They were fine. I think.
This is the Basket of Dreams sculpture on top of Queenstown Hill. Some cigarette smoking idiot machine was using it as a bench when we got there.
Another non-bro activity was giant cones of ice cream at Patagonia. Like, seriously, their “2 scoops” was half a gallon of ice cream. I couldn't finish it and Melissa regretted finishing hers. It was tasty none the less but not the tastiest ice cream we’ve had on our trip. That honor goes to Giapo In Auckland. Simply amazing! Smiths Brew Bar had some good regional beer on tap and, unlike most other places in Queenstown, I didn't have to take out a second mortgage to pay for drinks and a sandwich.
View of Lake Wakatipu from the top of Queenstown Hill.
There were some nice stacks of rocks around Queenstown. Here in the hills.
And down by the lake.
We spent some time lounging around our digs with the cats that live there. Paragliders would slowly circle over head and descend to a park nearby as we lay contentedly in the pool. Overall, not a bad way to unwind after walking across a mountain range.
See, we had lots of fun.