Sometimes I need reminding that I keep a blog that needs updating because people actually read it. Thanks for the reminder Clemence! I started this blog post while I was still in Queenstown but got distracted by skype.
I was in Queenstown for four days and I loved it. Initially I was only staying in Queenstown for 2 days but that would have meant I would have to have stayed in Christchurch for 3 days. Everyone I met advised me against it. Not because there might be an earthquake or whatever but because there is absolutely nothing to do there.
The day we left Wanaka we stopped off at Puzzling World. It was basically a museum of optical illusions. My head hurt by the end. Iona, Catriona and I got terribly lost in the maze. I crawled under the walls to no avail and in the end used the emergency exit. That day I learnt that getting lost in a maze is scary. They had one of those crazy rooms like they had in Shanghai. The bonus of this one was that there wasn't a million school kids running all over the place. (For those of you who don't know, you can view larger images of these pictures by just clicking on them...)
This room was way creepy. Where ever you go in this room, all the eyes follow you.
Leaning Tower of Wanaka and obligatory tourist shots.
Just outside of Queenstown, we stopped at Kawarau Bridge which is where Bungy jumping all began. We got to lie on huge bean bags while watching a film about the history of bungy and how crazy AJ Hackett is. Then we got to watch people taking the leap. We chanted along with some school group when some kid was too scared to jump. After watching everyone jump I still had no desire at all to throw myself off that bridge, hanging from a load of elastic. This is Greg from our group doing the bungy:
We finally made it to Queenstown and I'm so happy I stayed those extra days, totally worth it. It's a total ski town and everyone in town has obviously been hitting the slopes or are on their way there. We were surrounded by snow topped mountains on every corner. By the time I arrived in Queenstown I'd pretty much run out of money to do the cool activities like skiing (which is pretty much all there is to do in Queenstown), So I took full advantage of the free activities.
Thankfully the hostel we are stayed at was lovely, quite a luxury compared to the last couple of places we had been staying. I could probably quite easily have spend a day sat in front of the fire in the common room. Queenstown is such a party town so that wasn't really an option.
One of the free activities was to walk! Me and Catriona opted to go up Queenstown Hill instead of the Gondola Track as the track looked too much like hard work. And way steep. A girl staying in our room had warned us that the Hill was pretty steep and it was also pretty icy. She said it was hard work but definitely worth it. So off we went. And it was INTENSE. Now I'm not in the best shape, but I'm not totally unfit. Just walking up the street leading to the walk I had to take a break. When we got to the top of the street and I saw that the incline continued, I seriously considered turning back. This picture really doesn't show how steep this road is, but it has steps! It has steps because if it was a bog standard pavement it would be impossible to walk on.
We eventually made it to the track and as Melissa had warned us, it was pretty icy. Fortunately (or unfortunately as I thought at the time) there was enough patches of grass and mud to continue. We took our first break at the look out and appreciated the view of Queenstown and the Remarkables.
As we got deeper into the forest we came across this. Queenstown Hill is sacred in Maori culture and I'm guessing that these stones relate to that. I'm interested to find out what they mean because there were so many.
We made it to the next look out which looked over Queenstown's neighbouring town, Frankton. By the time we got to this point the snow was pretty thick. I know the pictures don't really show this but trust me, it was way snowy and icy up there. We still had further to go to reach the summit but we were advised by a man with a dog that it was too icy to continue so we ended up just heading back down.
One day I headed up in the Gondola with Aussie Scott. We probably picked the worst day to do this as it was snow day. Snow = bad views.
(I hate this picture of me but it's the only one I have of me in snow so I'm willing to get over it to share the snow. I hear multiple chins are in vogue now anyway)
My final day in Queenstown was spent being lazy and just wandering around town and tagging along with shoppers. And for once not buying anything. This was the view at the end of the road from the hostel.
This busker was amazing! I actually stood there for 20minutes listening to him.
Other Queenstown highlights include:
- Multiple nights in World Bar.
- Iona's "we must find the man in this photo... wait, is that him?" moment.
- Snow and mexican food for Tree's birthday. Hats and all.
- Ferg Burger. AMAZING.
- "CODE ONE!" - basically there's a guy wearing ugg boots. There were too many guys wearing ugg boots.
The day finally came for me to bid Queenstown farwell and board the bus for the long journey to Christchurch. As we went over the mountains I felt like I was in Narnia. Everything was pretty much white except that thin sliver of blue sky.
Beautiful view of Mt Cook. Obviously my terrible photography skills (I have no idea what I'm doing despite the fancy looking camera) failed to capture the beauty of it. The lakes up in the mountains were all a beautiful shade of light pastel blue and looked almost creamy. As Sinead said tho, the beauty of New Zealand can never be captured on camera. It's just something you have to see for yourself.
We made it to Christchurch at about 4pm. As we entered the city, our driver gave us a full brief on what to do in case of an earthquake. The thing was, he wasn't telling us as a joke. There's earthquakes all the time in CHCH and there had been a strongish (as in, you could feel it) one just a couple of days before we got there. I looked at
Christchurch Quake Map and turns out there was two earthquakes while I was there.
Driving around the place didn't look very busy. We passed houses that had huge cracks in them and were sagging and falling into ditches. It was unreal. There would be a house with a load of wooden frames holding it up next to a house that looked perfectly fine, next to a house falling apart. When I got to the hostel I got chatting to a guy in my room. He had been staying in CHCH for 3 nights and told me there was nothing to do and he had spent most of his time at the hostel reading his book.
The next day I headed down the road from the hostel into the centre. You couldn't get far before you got to a barricaded road. As I was walking around I was surprised by how empty the place is. It's like a ghost town, I hardly saw anyone except near the construction sites. Walking past office blocks, you could see in and it was weird because there was office equipment in these places and there were all the wires and lights hanging down from the ceilings. This one restaurant was all set up, plates and glasses on the table but the decor was all knocked over and smashed. The place had obviously been shut since the earthquake.
They were in the middle of tearing down this building and watched them hit it a few times with the bulldozer before I got bored. Apparently about 900 buildings are still to be demolished.
That afternoon I caught my flight back to Auckland and it was weird how familiar Auckland felt. Obviously this place is beginning to feel a bit like home. I've now been back in Auckland over a week, and have completed my first week in my new job and I love it.
