The Queenstown Trip

Our last trip was four days long, with the extended Easter weekend. This meant we had a lot of time to fill and a lot of driving to do. I booked 4 hostels, one in Twizel, Te Anau and then two nights in Queenstown. Twizel was a good stop because we didn’t have to drive too long after work, and it let us stop in Wanaka for an air show the next day. Te Anau is south west of Queenstown, and we booked here so we could drive up to Milford Sound for a cruise on the west coast. On Thursday we left work and the traffic was insane, with everyone driving for the holiday weekend. It took us about four hours to get to our hostel in Twizel, which wasn’t very nice. It was more of a camping lodge place. The three of us had our own room in a cabin shared with another older man, who turned out to be a retired high school teacher from Toronto. Small world.

Good Friday we got up and drove to Wanaka for an air show. First we drove past the airstrip where it was really busy and went into town. Tom hit the curb when he parked and a cop appeared out of no where and said our tail light was out and our registration had expired, but he didn’t fine us. I ordered a coffee and then we went to the air strip. It was in a huge farm field, with cars parks every where. It was like we were at a huge music festival. It cost 45 bucks to get seats in the stands, but we just stayed in the parking field, with a bunch of other people and got perfect views. When we first got there we saw insane fly bys of WWII planes and crazy jets doing flips and stuff, but then it quieted down and got boring for a bit. Then some guys parachutted and the planes did crazy stuff again. It was actually a lot better than I imagined it would be. Finally we left, on our way to Te Anau. We drove beside the Kawarau River, and the bridge we were going to bungee jump off on Sunday. When we passed it we could see the bridge, but the water was too far down to see and it looked horrifying, but at least we weren’t bungeeing that day. The rest of the trip I was trying to gauge how high everything was. We drove past Queenstown and got to Te Anau in time to check in and to have dinner. The hostel looked really really nice with an insane stainless stell kitchen. We went to a pizza and pasta place and I had some pumpkin filled pasta with Toscana wine. Then we went to the bar across the street for happy hour, pints for just 3.50$. It was a cool bar with pool tables upstairs, where everybody was watching rugby. I had some pretty good shots and one three games in a row. Some guy at the bar asked me where I was from and he said that he loved Canadians and played hockey with some in Thunder Bay, since he was from Wisconsin. After the bar we walked back to the hostel for bed. We shared a room with a girl from San Fransisco and a guy from Israel. We talked awhile with her about Milford Sound and that we were going there at about 6 AM the next morning. Te Anau seemed to be like a base camp for people walking all the way up to Milford Sound, about a two hour drive north.

Saturday we got up at 6 and I drove us to Milford Sound. It was pitch black the entire way, with no cars on the road. The road had been closed 9 days earlier due to some wind knocking down trees and some mud/rock slides. It drizzled rain on the drive there and even though it was pitch black we could just see the outline of huge mountains. We had trouble gauging our gasoline and it seemed to jump from 1/4 to empty and the gas light was going on and off. We were all terrified it was going to run out and that we wouldn’t be able to fill up in Milford Sound since it was so remote. We started to see more and more cars and we drove through the Homer Tunnel which was long, dark and steep. Finally we made it to Milford Sound and there was a gas station, but it wasn’t open yet. At 9 our cruise was ready and we went out to the Tasman Sea. Milford Sound has crazy mountains coming out of this bay and huge waterfalls. The boat had free coffee on it. We took a lot of pictures here and we saw a bird that was a cousin of the albatross out in the Tasman Sea. Once we got back to land we went to a cafe and all ate some meat pies, which are like quality pizza pockets, but filled with steak, mince or steak and cheese. We filled up the gas and we were all so happy because it was terrifying on the drive there thinking we were going to run out. We drove back to Te Anau and went to a wildlife centre which just had birds. We saw the Kea finally which is a crazy parrot type bird. You should look up videos of it doing stuff to people. Anyway, it rained all day and after the wildlife centre we drove back up to Queenstown. Queenstown reminded me of some place that would be in British Columbia, since it was surrounded by mountains, had a gondola, had a lake and completely thrived on tourism and night life. The streets were small and compact and you couldn’t tell what were streets or huge sidewalks. We checked into our hostel right beside Lake Watipu. There seemed to be a whole bunch of German students at this hostel which was really really nice. Isaac and I were in one room with people we didn’t see for awhile and Tom in another. We all kinda napped before dinner after getting up so early. We had no idea where to go to eat and it was raining and we didn’t feel like searching, so we went to the grocery store and we all bought 4 meat pies each, cookies and some beer. After eating back at the hostel and drinking beer we met the two strangers in our room. Isaac noticed they were speaking Swedish, since he is from Sweden himself. They were a couple and their names were Christian and Angelica. We played a card game with them called Chicago and drank beer. After that they went to bed and the three of us went to the TV room to watch a movie. There was an American guy there, from Detroit who had an accent that drove me nuts. When he said the word “concert” he pronounced it like “cahn-cert.” I didn’t finish watching the movie and just went to bed as we had a really busy day in Queenstown planned for Easter Sunday.

Isaac and I woke up pretty early and ate breakfast and I had a flat white from the machine in the hostel. We walked into Queenstown to the white water rafting booking office. We got on a bus that drove us to a building were we got wet suits, boots, helmets, life jackets and coats. Then the bus took us through the mountains and Skipper’s Canyon. The roads here were absolutely insane, and how they managed to drive a bus towing about 4 rafts, I’ll never know. A crazy Kiwi was our “guide” for this drive and he talked to everybody on the bus. There were people from Germany, Switzerland, Japan, England, Korea, Spain and Isaac and I from Canada. They dropped us off on the banks of the Shotover River and gave us safety instructions and put us into groups. Isaac and I got split up, but that was okay. I was in a raft with 4 people from Germany and Switzerland, 2 from Malaysia and then the guide from New Zealand. I sat at the very back right. Rafting was pretty easy going, and every time we got to rapids the guide would say “hold on” and we’d all crouch down in the raft and get soaking wet by the freezing water. It was actually pretty relaxing and fun. Near the end we went through a huge tunnel and on the other side was a massive rapid. I lost my paddle in it and hit my hand, and some girl fell out too. The rafting ended at the building where we got our wet suits and we undressed, showered and went into the sauna for a bit. Next was jet boating that started right where the rafting had ended. While Isaac and I were rafting Tom was off doing something else, and was jet boating just before us. The jet boats held approximately 10 people. There were heated hand rails and no seat belts. The driver explained that jet boats sucked in water and spit it out and could be driven in only four inches of water. I’ve never been more scared in my life riding this thing. We went so fast in a river and got so close to canyon walls. He would drive right beside the canyons, and then turn us so we were skidding sideways facing them. He’d also do 360s and would drive basically on the banks were you could see all the rocks. We went over bumpy rapids and you could hear the bottom of the boat getting smashed. A couple times it felt like I was going to fly right out. He took us to the tunnel we had rafted through earlier and explained 4 Australians dug it out to divert and lower the river so they could get gold. But, once they got to the other end, they were a meter too high and it didn’t work. After that ride we met up with Tom and took a bus back into town and went back to our hostel. We still had a couple of hours before our bungee jump at 4:30, so we all took a nap. At one point I saw the Israeli guy from Te Anau at this hostel and said hey.

The Kawarau Bridge that we had seen on Friday was about 20 minutes east of Queenstown. Once we got there we went into the office, got to checkout some of the bungee cords and check in. We had to take everything out of our pockets, sign some stuff and get weighed. I weigh 76 kilograms. Outside there were a couple of different viewing ledges and then the bridge, that went over the blue Kawarau River, you could walk right onto and watch people jump. About a 1/3 the way out on the bridge was the small area where you’d jump from. It was a pretty laid back place with the radio playing. We watched a couple people jump and it looked awesome. They’d just lean over and fall and go swoosh down past the viewing ledge. A lot of them were getting their heads dunked, but they told us since it rained so much the night before we couldn’t get fully immeresed. We briefed Tom on how to use our cameras so we could get filmed and then Isaac was busting to jump when I wanted to watch a couple other people first. So we walked onto the bridge and a girl handed me a harness first so I put it on. My heart started beating so fast that it started to hurt. A cool guy started to set up all these ropes and buckels and then called me down to get tied up. He wrapped a towel around my legs, with another strap over it and then attached my harness to the bungee and my feet to the bungee. He showed me the knots he had made in a rope and asked if they were okay and I said, I guess. He asked if I wanted to touch the water and I said yes and he explained to jump with my arms out to the side and then put them up near the water and put my chin to my chest. He then asked me to stand up and walk to the edge. He told me to look at a couple cameras that took my picture. The guy was holding onto the back of my shirt and all of a sudden he started couting down from 3 and I didn’t have time to be scared. I sort of leaned out until I was parallel to the water and then sprung out. I free fell for about 3 seconds quickly picking up speed with the wind flying by my ears until the bungee kicked in. I never ended up reaching the water and bounced way back up and screamed “wooo” that echoed in the canyon. It all happend so fast and I dangled there for a bit until two crazy girls in a raft came out with a pole and pulled me in. Just as I got out I had a pretty good view of Isaac jumping. Tom only recorded about half of my jump, but it still looks pretty cool. I had so much fun doing it that I considered doing it again, whereas Isaac said it was pretty scary. We went back to the bridge and watched a couple more people jump and told some girls who were terrified how fun it was. It was actually the most fun thing I’ve ever done and I want to do it again so badly. We were all finished at about 5 and then I drove us back to our hostel.

We were all exhausted and napped some more and Tom moved into our room and so did a woman from Finland who was really friendly. We then went to the Fergburger, which John from work recommended. It was insanely busy, but I manged to get a huge burger with a slice of pineapple on it. A waitress came up to me and asked where I was from and talked to us for about 15 minutes. She said she was from upstate New York and told us some good bars to go to. We went to about 4 bars looking to drink, but since it was Easter nowhere would serve booze unless we all ate too, but we were all so full. Even the grocery store wouldn’t sell alcohol. After walking around Queenstown for a bit we went back to the hostel and just went to bed after a busy Easter Sunday.

Monday we got up, ate breakfast, checked out and drove northwest to Glenorchy, because Tom wanted to take some pictures there. There was nothing special about this place except a lake that we walked around a bit, and a three legged dog followed us. We then started driving our long way back to Christchurch, but still had Mt. Cook and Lake Tekapo to stop at. I drove for about two hours to Mt. Cook and was scared to brake for a bit while a cop followed us. Mt. Cook was cloudy, but we still got to see most of it and some glaciers and glacier landforms. We even saw the Finnish woman from our Queenstown room here on a trail and talked to her for a bit. After Mt. Cook we drove to Lake Tekapo and only got out for about 15 minutes and took some pictures of the blue lake. That was our last stop and then we just drove home.

The Queenstown trip was definitely the best one, mainly because of all the stuff we did on Easter Sunday and the views at Milford Sound the day before and especially because of all the cool people we met. The only disappointing part was not being able to party in Queenstown due to the Easter holiday, but all in all it was a really good trip.

~ by Brandon on April 6, 2010.