Sunday, August 21st to Wednesday August 24th, 2011
Translation: I confirm that what you are proposing is good by me.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Today I headed out on my own for my final few days in New Zealand. I arrived at the bus station very early (only time I could catch a shuttle to the station) but it's not like I haven't killed time in a bus station before. Eventually I was able to hop on the bus and head to Queenstown.
This is the bus. Yeah I was expecting something bigger but what can you do. The bus was full with 5 of us so there was plenty of space. Let's face it..... I slept for most of the trip.
The Church in a small town of Geraldine. The town had a population of about 3,000 people...mostly aged over 65. Yes, it is a little retirement community. Very quiet on this Sunday morning.
Oh look....it's Lake Tekapo....again. I was not so excited to see Lake Tekapo again however with all the snow and sunshine it was really, really pretty. Plus, I actually was only going to be there for an hour so it wasn't so bad.
Another picture of pretty Lake Tekapo.
We stopped to take a look at a few things including Aoraki, also called Mount Cook. It is New Zealand's highest mountain (3754 metres, 12316 feet). The bus trip was just around 8 hours and involved commentary and story telling and plenty of stops along the way. It wasn't bad at all.
Eventually we made it to Queenstown, I got settled into my hotel and then made my way to downtown to check things out. The city certainly was busy. There were people everywhere and most stores were open pretty late and it had a great atmosphere.
The main drag in Queenstown.
I had however made a promise to everyone from my Haka Tour.....and pretty much everyone I had met who has ever been to Queenstown, that I would head to Fergburger and have one. So I went and I waited..... for over an hour for my Fergburger. It was pretty good I can't lie and it was worth the wait. Compared to anywhere else, the price was about right too.
The famous Fergburger. I took this after 2100 (9:00pm) and there were still a ton of people around. A very popular place. www.fergburger.com in case you want to see a little bit more about it.
Eventually I headed back to my hotel and got my stuff organized. The next 3 days I was spending on the ski slopes.
Monday August 22nd to Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
The big reason I came to Queenstown was so that I could do some skiing. There are 2 major hills around Queenstown, Coronet Peak and The Remarkables. I had 3 days of pre-bought ski packages (pass, rentals and transportation) and it actually allowed me to ski at either (or both) hills so I studied the maps of the hills to see which one I figured would offer me the best skiing. I chose Coronet Peak because it has more blue and black runs.
I took the early bus up and got there just as the hill was opening. They actually have a pretty good system. You basically get card (like a credit card) and they load all your rental info on it. You just take it to the different areas (clothing, boots, skies, poles) and they put it on your card and then you have your stuff. You can basically keep it for all the days you ski even if you decide to change hills. The card also acts as your lift pass as all the gates to the ski lifts are electronic.
Anyway, I got my skis and my poles and everything and then spent the rest of the next 3 days skiing.
Looking around from Coronet Peak. A very pretty view.
One of the main ski lifts. The hills certainly are smaller than what I'm use to (only 2 main lifts), and the runs are a lot shorter (doesn't take you long to get down at all) but the skiing that was there was pretty quality.
I decided after my first day at Coronet Peak, I would return there on Tuesday as well. In the morning I actually signed up for a private lesson. I learned to ski as a kid but haven't done at lot of it in the last few years. I thought this was a good time to have a little bit of critiquing and some additional instruction. Turns out I've picked up some very bad habits over the years of non-skiing so I was happy to have them pointed out so I could work on correcting them.
If you're really keen you can actually carry your skis, climb at to the top and ski down this untouched section. I would have loved it because it is mostly fresh powder,,,,and that is hard to come by in New Zealand, but there was no way I was climbing up the hill. Far too much work.
Seriously beautiful the Remarkable Mountains. You can just make out Queenstown in the bottom of this photo.
So I spent 3 wonderful days skiing and usually finished my days with some food and some drinks around Queenstown. Monday and Tuesday I managed to meet up with Burto. He was on his way through with another tour (a really small one......he only had 3 people with him) but we were able to have a few drinks (Monday night we met up with a Haka snow tour so it turned into a lot more drinks) and he showed me a few fun places in town.
Thursday I took a break from skiing and headed out to see another of New Zealand's must see spots.
Julie
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