Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown is considered to be the adventure capital of New Zealand. There is every extreme sport you can think of from sky diving to bungee jumping to white water rafting. We flew from Auckland into Queenstown in the afternoon and were all exhausted from the traveling that we decided to have a quiet day in our motel room (everywhere here is considered a motel for some reason, no idea what the different distinction is compared to the U.S, but they’re definitely not U.S quality motels like Super 8). Luckily we got a few movie channels, although a few just have rugby playing and one of them they try to pass off as a movie channel, but it just plays The Hobbit on repeat all day…every day. I think New Zealand is super proud that the movie was filmed here and doesn’t want their people or tourists to forget it.

The next morning we ate breakfast in the room and then ventured into town to check it out. It’s actually a smaller town than we had imagined, but there were plenty of restaurants and shops to look at. Our Sydney friends recommended that we go to a restaurant called The Cow for lunch while we were in Queenstown so we decided to head over to it to check out the menu. It was a pizza and pasta and pasta place which sounded just great to us. When we walked in it had a very old timey, cozy vibe and the smell of the wood burning stove filled the air with a quaint little kitchen in the corner serving the same menu since the mid-1950s (unfortunately not the same prices though). We enjoyed our delicious lunch and our chat with the server about the restaurant and some of our experiences in our travels.

Once our bellies were nice and full we headed over to the park to play. The playground is filled with little pebble rocks and Tyson really enjoyed throwing them all over the playground toys, especially up the slide which made a really cool sound when they rolled down. We enjoyed taking pictures of the area since it was right up against the beach of the huge lake the town boarders. Once Tyson was done playing we jumped in the car and headed to the grocery store to pick up some food for dinner. Breakfast for dinner sounded amazing so we made some yummy buttermilk pancakes with peanut butter and boiled some eggs to snack on later. We spent the rest of the evening playing with Tyson and doing some research about things to do in the area on the computer while watching the sunset through the window over the lake and mountains in the distance.

The following morning we headed to a town about 20 minutes away called Arrowtown. It was recommended to us by the information center so we figured we’d check it out. When we got to the town it was super small with just one main road with like 10 stores on each side. Although it was a cute little town we couldn’t quite figure out why it was so highly recommended. After about 20 minutes of walking around we jumped in the car and headed back to Queenstown where the real action is at. When we got into town we stopped at McDonald’s to grab lunch before heading back to the hotel. I saw that they had one apple pie left so I had to buy it. We’ve stopped in various McDonald’s for random snacks along the way (Mc D’s are everywhere) in New Zealand and NONE of them had apple pies so when I saw that this one had the one and only apple pie in the country, I jumped on it!

Later that afternoon we took Tyson to the playground to get out some energy. It was really cold and windy outside so I sat in the café next door to stay warm while Marshall played with Tyson. I definitely didn’t come to New Zealand prepared for the weather. The only jacket I have is a windbreaker because the really warm jacket I originally brought was ditched a long time…in Austria, when we knew we’d be in warmer weather for a while. I didn’t think I would need a warm coat the rest of the trip, but I was sorely mistaken. I’ve been wearing 4 layers of clothing (including long johns under my pants) and I’m still freezing. Granted, I’m a wimp when it comes to the cold and anything considered wind or a breeze in my direction. Either way, I’m still glad to be here and am enjoying all the views. After the park we walked over to a restaurant called the World Café. We grabbed a cozy spot next to a big roaring fireplace. This is the first place we’ve been to where there are marshmallows and sticks free to grab to roast over the fire. So awesome! Tyson loved the marshmallows that Marshall roasted for him. He kept saying “more, more!”, but we had to stop at two so he could enjoy the lunch that was coming. Unfortunately, what we thought would be a good hearty lunch of “pig scratchings” ended up being burnt pig skins that were barely edible to Marshall, lol. Well, gotta try random things sometimes.

Overall great times in Queenstown and we’re excited to see what the rest of this area has to offer over the next two weeks! Although we didn’t do any extreme activities this time, we may do something crazy when we come back in a few days.

Tomorrow we will be driving an hour north to our next destination next to a beautiful lake.

Next stop: Wanaka, NZ