Alright alright, I know it is kinda embarrassing that I haven’t written about my holidays on the South Island anymore, although this was such a big thing I really wanted to do. But what should I say? Some things might get in my way and without photos uploaded there is not much sense writing a new blog post.
Still, I am trying to get better and more recent with new posts, hopefully I succeed. Anyway, let’s recapture those awesome days down there. And of course we start at the beginning, at day one and the arrival in Queenstown.
It was a nice sunny day when my plane landed at Queenstown Airport. Not necessarily warm, but since sunshine became a rare thing in Auckland, it was something very highly appreciated. Plus, the flight was very relaxed. I spent the two hours talking to an old man from Christchurch and he seemed to knew everything about hiking in the Southern Alps, which was a good thing, at least that was my main intention why I got down here: Instead of rushing through the whole southern part of the South Island, I’d rather explore just a minute part of it in a very intense manner, namely by foot. Hiking in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, that’s exactly what I wanted.
Basically I was well prepared, but since my new shoes and sleeping bag didn’t arrive right in time, I had to get some replacement. OK, I’ve bought a nice sleeping bag, simple as. But when it comes to shoes, I can’t simply rush into a store spending 700 NZD on a new pair of shoes. So I did the only thing that made sense to me: I hired them. Yes, you can hire shoes at R&R Sports in Auckland for just 20 Dollars a week. How great is that? Let’s hope they will do the trick.
Anyway, first day ever in Queenstown. First day on the South Island since I’ve left the Rose Maree for nearly one year ago. Incredible, how could time pass by so quickly? So what to do in this place? First of all, I had to explore the town a little bit, just to know where I am and besides: Queenstown is one of the bigger cities down there. It got at least 30.000 people…
However, Queenstown is the most famous place in NZ for action holidays like Skydiving, Bungee Jumping, Mountain-biking, etc etc. This makes it a popular magnet for lots of backpackers and not necessarily always the good types among themselves. What I want to say is, it gets quite touristy at times.
But honestly who could resist such a stunning view on Lake Wakatipu , the big lake at which shore Queenstown resides?
So why not taking a little stroll along the shore? Queenstown City doesn’t seem to exiting after all at this stage. Not with such stunning mountain views. One thing I realized was, that I was not the only one hooked into this certain magic such a place contains. So I found lots of sea gazing people all over the place.
Despite all this beauty that resides within the lake the more eminent part of Queenstown are the mountains, since they make a much bigger part of this area. In fact, even that big that they have their own gondola up one mountain, that isn’t a ski area or something like that. It is more like an entry for every one who wants to do some mountain-biking, hiking or my favorite: Luge Riding.
At first, I haven’t had any intention to go up that mountain, because the gondola was rather expensive and I was not prepared for any decent hiking up there. But then I discovered the mountain bike downhill track and decided to make some pictures of the riders.
Making those pictures, got me quite motived to follow the little track alongside the mountain bike track in hope to get some better action shots up there. But unfortunately it was already quite late that day, so barely any biker came along. So for some strange reasons, I just kept walking up and up till I reached the top of the gondola by foot. Took me about an hour or so to get there. And once I was up there I had a great view of Queenstown and the adjoining landscape.
So I can really say I got a good first impression of Queenstown this very first day. Everything looks very beautiful, impressive and promising. It is really true what everybody says: The South Island is so much more beautiful than the North. But it is not only beauty that resides in it, but a certain magic that you might be able to sense faintly but definitely not to grasp.
More impressions from Queenstown – Day 1:
