South Island: Day 3 and Day 4 - Queenstown

We woke up early to check out of the hostel and headed to Queenstown. We had an absolutely beautiful drive. Even though we were in the car for about 5 and a half hours, it was really an enjoyable ride because the scenery was just so amazing. We were driving through mountains and past lakes. We stopped for a picnic lunch (well, really peanut butter sandwiches!) at one of the lakes. Parts of the drive were very twisty and windy, but around every turn was a new sight! Honestly, this drive was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. Between the mountains, the lakes, the blue sky and the fall colors, it was just beautiful!
We were driving along Lake Wanaka and a mountain range called “The Remarkables” for a good portion of the drive. We went on some pretty steep and windy mountain roads, which gave us some great views of Queenstown coming in. When we arrived, we went to our hostel to check in and drop off our stuff before walking around town. It was really a fun town to just walk around in because there was a lot going on. There were lots of shops and restaurants. We found a camera store where Lynn could get her camera battery charged because she had accidentally left her charger on our last trip.

We were all exhausted and decided to take a nap back at the hostel before dinner. Then, we walked back into town to go to dinner at Fergburger. It’s a pretty famous burger place with unusual specialty burgers. The burgers were ENORMOUS, but absolutely delicious!

Here's Kim and Lynn enjoying their monster burgers:

We were completely stuffed when we left, but very happy with our meals. Back at the hostel, we showered up and got ready to go out. We checked out 3 different bars in town: The Buffalo Club, Altitude, and World Bar, all of which were interesting in their own way.

The following day, we got up at 8 so that we could check out of the hostel and pack up the car. Then, we drove to the Skyline Gondola. Kim and I had booked paragliding, while Lynn and Cate were going bungy jumping. We wished them luck before they headed off to jump 134 meters! The weather was very overcast, so before taking the gondola ride up, I called the paragliding place to make sure our trip was still going to go on. The man told us to come up and that he would meet us up there, so we paid for our gondola and took the ride up to the mountain. It was a really steep cable car ride, and we had great views over the lake. BUT, as we were riding, it started to rain, and by the time we got to the top, it was coming down pretty hard. We found the paragliding office, but there was no one there, so I called the guy again. He said that he was on his way up and he came over to talk to us. He said that because of the weather, “unfortunately we wouldn’t be able to fly today.” He kept repeating that exact phase and seemed really uncomfortable and awkward. I was kind of disappointed, because I was really looking forward to it, but at the same time, it was getting more and more foggy and overcast, so it really didn’t make sense to go. I said to him, “I know this might be a silly question, but is there any way we could get our gondola ride refunded, because the only reason we came up here was to paraglide?” He told us no at first, but then he took out his own wallet and handed us $40! He told us that this was the first time that a refund had been given out in the 18 years that the paragliding company has been operating. I felt kind of bad, but not so bad that I didn’t accept the money!

The view from the top of the gondola:
So Kim and I took a nice ride back down the mountain and then geared up in our jackets to brave the rain. It was Kim’s birthday, so we decided to treat ourselves to a nice birthday brunch. We went to this really cute café where we split pancakes and eggs. But these were not just any old pancakes and eggs! The pancakes were blackberry and blueberry pancakes with honeycomb and lemon butter and the eggs were poached eggs, served on ciabatta bread with grilled capers and cheese. Everything tasted wonderfully delicious! Then, we just strolled around the town a bit and stopped in a souvenir shop where Kim bought a few things. We also went to an internet café where we made some phone calls.

We enjoyed our breakfasts so much that we decided to go back to the same café for snacks! This time, I had a muffin (blackberry, apple and white chocolate) and Kim had a chocolate hazelnut brownie. There was a small little bird in the café and Kim was laughing at me because I was chasing it around the restaurant trying to catch a picture of it! We were both feeling pretty sleepy and had a little time to kill before we needed to pick up Lynn and Cate, so we just went to the car to take a quick nap. It was only about 15 minutes before we heard from the girls – we were glad to find out that they not only survived the bungy jump, but had a blast doing it! They both got DVDs of their jump, so we pulled over and watched them on my laptop as soon as they got in the car. It made me nervous just to see it on video – I couldn’t even imagine doing it myself. I’m just happy that they had such a great time!
We picked up some supplies at the grocery store to cook a nice dinner for Kim’s birthday. Then we headed out of town to drive to Milford Sound. When we pulled over so that Cate and I could switch off the driving, I jumped up and down a couple of times just to stretch my legs. A car driving by backed up to make sure that we were ok - he saw me jumping and thought we needed help! It was a nice drive, but it started raining really hard. It was also starting to get dark, so we couldn’t really see what we were going past all that well. Once we arrived and got settled into the hostel, we cooked our dinner. We made mashed potatoes, broccoli, and chicken with sweet chili sauce. It was a delicious meal but there were lots of extra mashed potatoes. No one wanted them and I felt bad letting them go to waste so I just ate them and was stuffed afterwards! We rented the game Cranium from reception and played before getting to bed.