Rome-ing Minutes: Winter Winning: Quality in Queenstown

Arriving in Queenstown

We flew from Rotorua to Auckland to Queenstown. The trip was pretty unsuccessful in that between the two of us, we lost a library book, a fancy memory-foam eye mask and a fleece sweatshirt. Oops. Missing possessions aside, decent into Queenstown was breathtaking.

We checked into the world's best hostel - Adventure Queenstown. The staff was helpful and the other guests were interesting, friendly and respectful. But the real magic happens in the details - the showers were great, plenty of sinks and shelves in the bathroom, an outlet with USB charging docks and a curtain at every bed, free towels, iPads and bikes for borrowing, a TV with Netflix, 2 pillows for each guest etc. Highly recommend for anyone heading this way.

But I digress... After dropping off our dirty laundry, which the staff did for us that day, I climbed the Queenstown Hill (which was actually a fairly steep and intense hike that I was ill prepared for) and enjoyed fantastic views of Queenstown, the surrounding mountains and the lake.

Queenstown Hill

I met up with Adam and we walked to the supermarket at the outskirts of town for groceries. For dinner, we made my (becoming world) famous nachos but with a pineapple twist. We made way too much and offered the rest to other guests in hopes of not wasting food. And waste we did not. Soon, people from all over the world were devouring my nachos and asking for the recipe!! Miss you Josh. Soon, we'll have nachos night together again.

Later, we participated in the hostel's weekly scavenger hunt. We did ridiculous dares including instructing a yoga class at McDonalds, shaking a stranger's hand for an awkwardly long time and trading a paperclip for something cool (we got a freshly baked cookie, a plastic insect, 2 branded pencils and a wine aerator all for a single paperclip and some charm. But by far the weirdest thing done all night, was when Adam traded underwear with a stranger in the middle of the street! The guy didn't look very clean - I really hope Adam didn't pick up any diseases.... Anyway, back to the important things - our team won $50 in drinks at the bar afterwards!!!

#Winning

Adam switching underwear with a stranger....

Instructing fast food yoga

Dolphins in Milford Sound

A few hours later (but well before dawn), we took a bus to the iconic Milford Sound. The drive was spectacular and we saw the most gorgeous sunrise. It started with red streaks across the sky and turned pink and then orange. I fought so hard to enjoy the scenery but eventually caved to my exhaustion and slept for a good part of the drive. When we arrived, we boarded a boat to cruise the Sound. Unfortunately, it rains almost all the time there so we didn't have best weather for a boat ride. However, it was still incredibly beautiful to see the enormous cliffs and waterfalls surrounding us. The highlight was when dolphins started swimming with the boat!!! (Now, I think about the dolphins to smile well for pictures. I love dolphins!)

Today, we invited some people from the hostel to hike with us. We tried to catch the sunrise (it rises close to 8am here!) but it was the opposite direction from the hike so we didn't see much of it. We made the steep climb up the Tiki trail for some beautiful views from the other side of Queenstown. We left our co-hikers and continued on to the Ben Lomond trail, which was pretty long and challenging but so incredibly beautiful!! Once we climbed to a serious elevation, the snow and ice on the path made it difficult to climb further so we turned around. On the way down, we stopped at a lodge with a beautiful view to rest, warm up and eat our PB sandwiches.

Ice Bar

Back in town, I borrowed a bike from the hostel and went for a beautiful ride along the Frankton Arm for a few hours. I brought my book and relaxed on a dock and read The Prime Ministers. After a pretty full day, we topped it off by going to the ice bar for a drink and then enjoying the tastiest burritos.

In the morning, we start our road trip around the South Island! Hope driving on the left side of the road is less strange than it looks.