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NZ 2015: Adventure day(s)
posted : Saturday, January 30, 2016
Think this is my favorite city in NZ. Though both Chris and Sam would disagree hahah.
Popped by a souvenir shop in town before leaving Te Anau owned by this Taiwanese lady who reminded us not to speed hahahah. Then after that it's pretty much heading back the same way we came to Queenstown.
One last look at Lake Te Anau before heading off.
Good weather!
Stopping over at Lake Wakatipu (sometimes it sounds as if I am making up names). At this lookout point called Devil's Staircase though I see no staircase.
Entering Queenstown!
Drive wasn't too long and we reached in time for lunch but too early to move into our rooms. So we left some of our luggage in the storage room (actually duno why, could have just driven around with our luggage also). More on the accommodation later.
Lunch was at Fergburger! Travel guides everywhere recommended this and even locals were dutifully queuing up everyday for it so you know it's good. Left Chris to queue with our orders while we drove around in vain trying to find a car park lot. One of the reasons why Sam didn't like Queenstown was the dearth of long term car park lots ahahahah. Managed to find 20 minute one and went down to join Chris.
Had to move our car after we got our orders so eventually we decided to park slightly further away and walk over to have lunch by the lake. 
Queue at Fergburger
Staff assembling burgers
Had the pork belly burger which had really nice cracklings and was just awesome.
Nom!
Nice view over lunch.
Am officially in love with Queenstown
Drove over to Ben Lomond station for our first activity in Queenstown - horseback riding! The drive there was somewhat filled with uncertainty coz Google indicated that we have reached our destination even though we are in the middle of nowhere lol. Kept driving along the off road track and eventually we found the place in time.
Oh, had to pay by cash coz there's no phone signals here either hence credit card payments are not possible. Much like Milford which needed satellite phones. Ulu much.
There were only two groups doing horseback riding that afternoon and the other group was only scheduled to arrive at 3pm or something, so we were pretty much on our own. Three horses were already picked out for us along with one for the guide, who's on a German girl on work and travel program. Interesting job choice. After a briefing and demo, off we go!
Here we are
Yep, not a very big place.
Off we go! Horseback riding into the valley.
Still managed to fiddle around and take out selfie stick and attach handphone to it and snap photo. On a horse with one hand holding on to the reins.
A really nice day for horseback riding.
On our horses! Mine was called Boom. Hahah.
Horses are really tame and well trained. As long as you don't annoy them and do stupid things like kicking their belly to move them (stuff like that only happens in movies). Though they do stop quite frequently and randomly to pee and poop hahahaha. And they must move in a pre determined order, can't remember exactly how the order is determined but I imagine it's somewhat like seniority lol. And they will also be annoyed if they are being overtaken by the one behind, too.
Went one lap into the valley and back again to the station. More comfortable than I imagine though I do have to stretch a bit frequently.
After returning the horses, went over to the lake for chill a bit before heading back to Queenstown proper. Straight to a supermarket for our daily routine of buying stuff to cook dinner.
Condition of car at the end of the offroad track.
Back to Queenstown!
Back to the hostel! Had lots of trouble finding a car park lot though. Hostel is in the heart of the town so there weren't car parks and lots nearby are all short term street side lots. The open air car parks directed by the hostel staff were all full by the time we went hunting for a lot and after a massive effort, managed to find a street side lot within 5 minute walk from the hostel to park our car for the night.
Adventure Queenstown Hostel was highly rated and pretty affordable too so I chose that. Here you can really feel the very different vibe as compared to the other places we have been so far - Queenstown is really vibrant and full of energy. The hostel hosts different activities every night - movie night, pub quiz etc and encourages the guests to mingle and have fun. For our first night, the kitchen (which is pretty small, one of the few downsides) is full of people collaborating with each other for a bbq party of sorts. But there were a lot of hits - the hostel is owned by two people who have traveled the world and understood traveler needs - and thus have tiny things like having individual plug points/wall USB ports next to each bed, and lots of hooks in the room for us to hang clothes/toiletry bags etc. and sufficient toilets/bathrooms per floor.
Brandon never did show up.
The room!
Tags to attach to our beds.
Uh...anyway we were antisocial la hahaha so we just focused on cooking our dinner, and after dinner we went back out for a stroll.
Dinner of fried asparagus, pan grilled lamb chops and pan fried wings
Out for a stroll evening stroll
Back to the lake area.
Love it.
I like that Queenstown is vibrant but not too crowded. Just nice. Particularly enjoyed the two night strolls we had.
The next day was the designated adventure day! Before dinner the previous day we popped by one of the many agents in town to settle our bookings. Chris wanted to do sky diving, but neither me nor Sam had the guts to do that so we decided partner up to go for Canyon Swing instead. Canyon swing over bungee jumping coz at least we don't have to jump on our own initiative hahahah. Signed up for AJ Hackett Nevis Swing while Chris signed up for NZone sky diving over the Remarkables mountain range. But before that all three of us signed up for a Shotover Jetboat ride!
Moved our car to the whole day paid parking lots early in the morning while Sam started on cooking breakfast. After breakfast, headed over to the pick up point for Shotover jet!
Our usual breakfast of ham bacon mushrooms and scrambled eggs.
Paragliders in action!
Us in action! At Shotover Jet.
Pretty fun though the ride itself wasn't very long :/ Headed back to town in time for lunch at a random pizza shop, then popped by the botanic gardens for a walk as we had some time to kill before the afternoon activities. 
Botanic Gardens
There's this frisbee golf course. Hybrid of frisbee and golf, very interesting.
Went our separate ways to our designated pick up points after lunch! For Sam and I it was a 45 minute bus ride to the site. Deposited our stuff in the lockers, then headed to the launch site where there's a group of Indian tourists going on the swing alr. Watching them going through the whole thing made us question if we should even go for it hahahaha. 
Getting ready for it!
On site :/
Anyway we didn't buy any photos or videos of our swing but here's a video of how it looked like.    It was over in a flash! They didn't warn us before dropping us -.-. It's like wave at this camera, wave at that camera, WOOSH. No countdown. Screamed all the way down haha. Anyway looking at the photos afterwards of the moment we were dropped it seemed that I was way more terrified than Sam was hahahaha. 
The aftermath!
And of course we declined going for another round. Lol.
Headed back to town only to find that Chris' original skydiving plans got cancelled due to the overcast weather. But they managed to find a replacement site for him which required him to drive back to Wanaka and jump over Lake Wanaka instead hahahah. Luckily we left the car keys with him coz he was supposed to finish earlier so he drives over by himself and managed to complete his dive! But it delayed him so Sam and I went over to chill at a cafe, buy groceries and waited for him to return before starting on dinner.
Snacking at a cafe.
 
Dinner! Finished up the wings and asparagus, heat up some roasted potatoes, and Chris and Sam had beef schnitzel (?) as their mains.
Went out for a night stroll after dinner as per the previous day. Also to fulfill my gelato craving hahaha.
Mrs Ferg's Gelato.
And that's about it for Queenstown! There are other activities that Queenstown have to offer - paragliding, the water sport activities at the lake, gondola ride etc but we didn't have time for that.
Mount Cook next!
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