On the road again. To Queenstown.

Tuesday, October 21
South Island: Invercargill, Bluff, to Queenstown

We woke early on Tuesday to an overcast sky, and went over to the farm house for breakfast. The kitchen also smelled like wet cat, and the situation was only worsened when our hostess – a friendly plump lady with a name like Jane or June – informed us that most of the food we were eating (the sausages, the eggs, the bacon) came to us “care of the farm animals.”

Our hostess was nice, though, and chatted with us about travelling and school and all the usual topics. When she went to take care of our payment, Jamie and I convinced Andrea that she should try some Vegemite. Andrea had never heard of it before, which was good because, if she had, she would have known to avoid it. It must be an acquired taste that only those from Australia and New Zealand have. Andrea spread a good-sized glob on a piece of toast, and proceeded to gag for about five minutes after taking a hefty bite. Jamie and I, needless to say, found this very amusing.

After breakfast, we packed up our things and headed out of Invercargill. Since we’d gotten lost the night before, we hadn’t driven to the town of Bluff like we’d originally planned. So we headed south out of the city.

The drive to Bluff – “where the highway starts” – only took about 20 minutes. It’s the southern-most city in New Zealand, if you don’t count the small towns located on Stewart Island (which, most people don’t). It rained on our way into town, but, as seemed to be our luck for the past few days, the clouds parted once we reached our destination.


We hit the International Sign Post first, which is fairly self-explanatory. It’s a yellow signpost at Stirling Point, with various signs pointing in different directions, giving the distances to well-known places and cities. We were over 15,000 kilometers away from New York City, nearly 19,000 kilometers from London, a little over 5,000 kilometers away from the equator, and 4,800 kilometers from the south pole. It was cool knowing both how far south I was, and also how very far away from home I had come.

Next we booked it to the top of Bluff Hill, which overlooks the town. On a clear day, you can catch a glimpse of Stewart Island from here, but all we saw were the incoming rain clouds. So we ran back to the car; it was too cold and early to get soaking wet.

On the way out of town, we stopped at the post office to pick up some postcards, and for Jamie to mail a few chocolate bars to her family. Then it was back through Invercargill (with a stop at the giant umbrella), and on to Queenstown.

Let me take this moment to make a brief side note about Invercargill – most New Zealanders seem to have something against the town. It’s almost like the West Virginia of New Zealand. The rest of the country makes fun of Invercargill accents, and the kinds of people who live there. But Jamie, Andrea and I were pleasantly surprised to find a pretty town with friendly people. So don’t believe the bad stuff you hear about it (if you ever do)!

The crappy weather in Invercargill had us worried about the rest of our trip; the weather forecasts since we’d left Wellington had been predicting rain, rain, and more rain for our whole trip, but we’d been relatively lucky so far (with the exception of Kaikoura). So we assumed that perhaps our luck was running out.

But it wasn’t.

It seemed that the storm system was confined just to the southern tip of the country, because, the further away we got, the clearer the skies became. Soon we were zooming along under a cloudless blue sky, with the Southern Alps rising, snow-capped, in the distance.

The gorgeous drive to Queenstown took a few hours, but I don’t think any of us minded the drive though the beautiful, mountain-bound farm country. The grass was green, the sun was shining, and it was a great day for driving.

We reached the southern shore of Lake Wakatipu (and the small town of Kingston) roughly an hour before we got to Queenstown. The lake, in the shape of a long, skinny “S,” has an interesting Maori legend behind it. I’ll give you the short version. The legend goes that a giant named Matau kidnapped the daughter of one of the local chiefs and ate her (or something like that). He laid down to sleep that night, and a brave youth from the tribe set him on fire, burning him where he lay. His outline formed the shape of Lake Wakatipu, which, in Maori, means “Hollow of the Giant.” Today, Glenorchy sits at Matau’s head, Queenstown on his knee, and Kingston at his feet. The waters of the lake rise and fall up to 12 centimeters every few minutes, and this is said to be caused by Matau’s still-beating heart. Cool, huh?

The last leg of our drive took us right along the edge of the long lake, with the mountains towering above us. I realize that the Southern Alps pale in comparison to other world mountain ranges, but, to a girl from flat Ohio, they look pretty impressive.

We got into the outskirts of Queenstown (Kelvin Heights) in the early afternoon, and decided, since the weather was nice, to head straight to Deer Park Heights. Deer Park Heights is a combination farm, lookout, and “Lord of the Rings” filming location site. I was there the last time I was in New Zealand, and knew the views would be worth the $20 per car entry fee.

We paid our twenty bucks and began winding our way up the small mountain. We ran into some alpacas and deer right away, and stopped to both try to pet them and to take in the view over Queenstown. While we stood there, an older couple was driving down the mountain, and gave us their tin of animal food. We put it to good use, bribing the deer to come closer.

We spent a few hours on the mountain, stopping at all the lookouts with amazing views, and feeding all sorts of animals. I even made Andrea and Jamie hang off of “Aragorn’s Cliff,” just because it makes a good photo, even if you don’t know anything about “Lord of the Rings.” I also took them further up on the mountain, where, on a day like that one, the Remarkables are reflected in clear water.

On the way back down, in the section where we were warned to stay in our car, I hopped out to pet and feed some friendly donkeys. As the car was stopped, about five or six curious, hungry donkeys crowded around the car and began sticking their shaggy heads in the window. It was adorable!

Further down, Andrea tried to chase some “reindeer” for a photo for her Christmas card (which she failed at), and tried to get rid of the rest of our animal feed by giving it to a friendly doe. The doe proceeded to slobber all over Andrea’s hand, which was hilarious.

We then drove into “downtown” Queenstown. I love Queenstown. I really do. It’s a small little resort town that only consists of a few major streets. But it’s so cute and quaint that you don’t focus on its small size too much. We stopped at the i-Site first of all, to grab some maps and to book some things for the next day. We booked the Shotover Jet for early the next morning, with me booking it in a combo with a helicopter ride up into the Remarkables.

Then it was on to check into our hotel and take a break from the car for a little while. We stayed at the Coronet Peak Hotel, which was located outside of the city near the Shotover Jet. The hotel is primarily a ski lodge, but, since it was the off-season for skiing, we got our room for a great price. There was even a free shuttle service for us to use if we wanted to.

After checking and settling in, we headed back into town. Since we didn’t have a concrete plan while in Queenstown and wanted to take advantage of the nice weather, we decided to go up the Skyline Gondola while it was still daylight.

We bought gondola tickets and passes for two luge rides. I’ve been up the Queenstown gondola before (it has GREAT views out over the mountains, lake, and city), but the luge wasn’t there three years ago. Basically what they’ve done is paved twisting tracks coming down a large hill. You get in a little plastic luge, and navigate down said tracks. It’s good, cheap fun.

Since we hadn’t had much of a lunch and Jamie needs fed at least seven times a day, we ordered some potato wedges at the bar before luging. For only five bucks, they were a great idea – and tasty, too! It sure beat the $60 buffet dinner we could have paid for with our gondola tickets.

After taking some photos of the town below us, we headed over to the luges. Everyone has to go down the “scenic” track on their first round, which is a slower, less curvy track. Andrea took off first, and I followed. Being slightly cautious, I was apparently going too slow for Jamie, who zoomed past me. I then rounded a corner in time to see her flipping head over heels and landing under a fence.
I nearly peed myself. Especially since she’d been the one asking “who could be stupid enough to actually flip these things?” Needless to say, Andrea and I did not let her live it down. We made her take photos by the “respect signs” sign, re-enact the event, and we even bought her a “luge accomplishment” certificate in the gift shop. Oh, good times.

On our way out, we wanted to get a photo in front of the sign, with Andrea and I making a thumbs up under the “gondola” and “restaurant” bits, and Jamie giving the “luge” portion a thumbs down. We flagged down a group of older people to take the photo, and, lo and behold, found out that they, too, were Ohioans! What a small, small world. They were making a journey similar to ours through the south – except in reverse. They were headed to Invercargill and Dunedin next, so we gave them suggestions on things to see. It’s so random to meet so many Ohioans abroad. Our state sucks, apparently.

We then drove back into town, and took a walk along the Lake Wakatipu beach. Doing so brought back memories of my last time in Queenstown, and I pointed out the tree I had climbed with one of my tourmates. Jamie and Andrea naturally decided that they needed to climb it. This was a hilarious ordeal in itself.

Once they were both up in the tree, a busload of Asian tourist pulled up. “Asians!” I warned them. “You’d better get down, or they’re going to take pictures of you!” Andrea didn’t believe me. But, not three minutes later, and she’d had roughly four photos taken of her. Ah, I hate it when people live up to stereotypes!

Somehow we still had time left in our day, and so decided to hit up a few souvenir stores before dark. Queenstown has a great variety of shops, all with relatively inexpensive souvenirs. We also visited a candy shop (The Remarkables Sweet Shop), where Andrea and Jamie tried some fudge and I bought psychedelic gummy snails. And yes, that’s actually what they were called.

We finally headed back to the hotel in the evening. We watched some TV and got ready for bed, knowing that we had to wake up extra early to catch the shuttle into town in time to get picked up for our jetboat ride. But 11 p.m. rolled around, and suddenly Andrea realized that she didn’t have her drawstring bag.

She began freaking out about it, and, once it wasn’t in the car, insisted that we drive back into town to look for it. It had all of her “important documents” in it, as well as her iPod, and she was very distraught about it. Jamie told her we could drive back, reassuring her that we’d find it. But as soon as Andrea was out of the room, she turned to me and said, “We are not finding that bag.” Oh, Jamie.

So we drove back to the beach. We were all in our pajamas, and I had my glasses on, which meant I couldn’t really see very well at that point in the night. Andrea flew out of the car, armed with Jamie’s cell phone as a flashlight, and began combing the pebble beach. Jamie went to talk to a security guard she spied, and I kind of moseyed along the low wall that separated the beach from the sidewalk, trying to think of where else Andrea could have left her bag.

I was about to track her down and tell her we’d be better off coming back in the morning when something caught my eye on the sidewalk side of the wall. I could barely see it in the moonlight, but the orange Adidas symbol on Andrea’s white and green bag caught my eye somehow. I scooped it up and called out to Andrea.

She was so excited that she nearly bowled me over. I told her not to get too excited until she checked to make sure everything was in there. Though, we were in New Zealand – of course everything was still in there.

We headed back to the hotel at last, and I had to help Jamie find her way back. Usually she’s good with directions, but it was late, dark, and she hadn’t really taken a good look at a map of the city. I joked that it was a good thing I’d come after all, otherwise Jamie would have been driving to Invercargill, and Andrea would have been slitting her wrists and looking for the nearest cliff.