After setting my alarm for 3:30AM, I got an Uber to the airport and met the group at about 4:00AM. The roads and the airport were really quiet at that time so it was a nice leisurely pace. The only problem is that most of the food places were closed at this time, but we waited for Hungry Jacks to open (along with everyone else) to get some breakfast. The timing was perfect, as soon as we finished it was time to board.
The flight left on time and we were actually half an hour ahead of schedule. It was the quickest international flight I’ve been on, only took around 3 hours!
As the plane arrived in Queenstown, the view was amazing! The flight path takes you in between two mountains and you loose a sense of scale by looking at the terrain below until you see a building!
When we arrived, we made our way through customs without any trouble and went to pick up our cars. We got a small car and a van, mainly so we could fit all the luggage in and have the small car for quick little trips to the grocery store, etc.
The van stands out like a sore thumb though! We went over the cars to record any pre-existing damage and headed to our hotel.
Driving around here is really nice, constantly surrounded by mountains! The hotel is at the base of the mountain and you can see the gondolas going up to the peak from the driveway!
After checking in and getting settled, we headed to the famous Fergburger! This had been recommended to us by a lot of people and it had pretty good reviews online. The location of the hotel is great, the center of town is just a five minute walk so it didn’t take us long to get to Fergburger.
It was pretty easy to spot the place because there was a huge crowd out the front and a queue going out the door and around the corner! There was a staff member out the front who gave us a menu and when she saw how shocked we were at the queue, she reassured us that this isn’t that bad and should only take 15 minutes to get to the front and another 15 minutes to get food. This still didn’t seem great, but with a crowd like that it must be good!
I ended up ordering a “Tropical Swine Burger” which has beef, bacon, cheddar, pineapple, lettuce, tomato, onion, aoili and tomato relish and chips. It was pretty good but it was massive!
After lunch we decided to take a drive up the mountain to a lookout. It was about a 13km winding road and it started off pretty well, but after a few kilometers the road wasn’t sealed and there weren’t any barriers on the sides of the road to stop us from slipping down the step cliff faces! We ended up taking the van which did ok taking the hills, although it was struggling a little bit. The ride got pretty bumpy as the gravel became more and more coarse as we got further up the mountain, but we survived!
At the top there was actually a warning sign about avalanches and it was set to extreme! We were thinking that’s probably what all the construction and unsealed roads were about!
The lookout was meant to be at The Remarkables Ski Field, but when we got there it looked like it was just a construction field. It turns out it was closed for the season, but we still got a pretty good view just from the drive alone.
After taking a few photos we headed back down nice and slow to not risk the brakes locking up and sliding off but the view was great. We made a couple of photo stops and even managed to get a group photo by putting a camera on the roof of the van. The wind was so strong here that it was actually moving the big dSLR a little bit, so we didn’t take too many!
From here we went down to Queenstown Bay Beach for a walk and a coffee break. The beach didn’t have any sand, just lots of rocks but it was a really nice spot! There were quite a few people but the atmosphere was really chilled! It was a pretty nice way to spend the afternoon.
From here we stopped by the grocery store, got some supplies and headed back to the hotel for a bit. The wind had dies down quite a bit, so I thought I’d try the drone for the first time and it was pretty nice to fly! Didn’t take too long to setup and while I’m still getting the hang of making nice smooth videos, my first attempt looked ok.
It started getting dark and much colder! We rugged up and headed into town for dinner at The Taco Medic and had dessert at Cookie Time, both of which were also pretty good!
