Queenstown

I left off with my description of my less than stellar time that I had in Roxburgh. Luckily, since I left I’ve been having a great time! It’s late Tuesday night right now, and I left Roxburgh on Friday. That is about 5 days since I’ve been gone.

My first destination was Queenstown.  The city is known for being one of the most popular and EXPENSIVE tourist destinations in the southern island, if not the country. It isn’t very big though, only about 11,000 permanent residents.

I got there kinda late, around 6:30, so I figured I’d probably just stay in that night and explore the next night. I could not have been more wrong. After checking into my hostel I went to go find a bank. After that I walked back to my hostel to probably just watch a movie or read. When I got to my room I found two other Americans in my room! We were all pretty pleased with this because Americans in New Zealand are endangered. We had a room of six but there were three of us, Joe, me, and Jess.

We hung out for a while in our room just talking and cracking jokes, while Joe and Jess drank. I didn’t have any beer so didn’t, which will I would be thankful for later on…

ANYWAY, at about 9:30 or 10 we decided to go out! Queenstown has heaps of bars, and a lot going on a Friday night. Our first bar we went to was called the Broiler room. We got there and it was hopping. It was really small and there were a lot of people dancing. I wasn’t exactly sure how to order alcohol so Jess showed me how to. I was confused cause I’d only been used to what actors do in movies which I knew wasn’t true.

After about 30 minutes a lot of people had left so Jess ,  Joe and I moved on to Altitude. This next bar was more popular than the other. They had some drink specials and a dance floor.

We stayed there for about an hour then moved on to the Buffalo Club. There was a small dance floor but a lot of people and great music. It was part bar and part club, which we all liked cause we liked to dance. I think Jess and I more so than Joe… This was by far our favorite bar. We stayed there for a while.  Joe and I talked to two girls for a while. One lived in Christchurch and the other there in Queenstown. I wish I could have told you their names, but, no dice… Jess also picked up a guy there named Gouli. Or so we think. He was a mysterious guy which made him the brunt of many of our jokes. None of which he knew were about him.

After a while we moved on to the world bar. Joe needed to smoke a cigarette and Jess had brought Gouli along, so I just stood there waiting for Joe to come in. According to the bouncers, standing and waiting means I’m really drunk. I got kicked out. I had had a bunch of drinks but was by no means drunk. Heck I saw people who couldn’t walk strait get let in, and I could hold a reasonable conversation and stand straight! Oh well.

After 15 minutes Jess and Joe realized I was gone and came out with me and we went to the next bar, Winnie’s. It was really similar to Buffalo. Small space, loud music, alcohol. It was like 2 am at that point so I was getting tired. I danced a little, then just sat and chilled while Jess danced with Gouli and Joe tried, successfully, to pick up girls.

At 2:30 we said goodbye to Gouli and headed back to the Buffalo club. We each had another drink, danced some and then went back to the hostel at 3 am. And passed out.

If anyone had observed us the full night, there is no way they would have been able to tell that the three of us had met a few hours previously. We acted like best mates and laughed a lot. I know I said that I had my best time in New Zealand with, Selina, Richie, Anna, and Aya but that night was just as fun!

The next day both of them had flights to catch. I would’ve liked to hang out, but obviously they couldn’t. So I explored Queenstown during the day.

Crafts fair

Beach on the lake

Massively delicious burger from Ferg Burger

Read there for awhile

Self-Portrait what do you expect.

I stayed in that night because I spend a BUT LOAD of money the night before and I don’t like drinking 

multiple nights in a row.

The next morning I got up and checked out then went to go pick up my car. WHAT CAR?! Yup. There is a cool service in New Zealand that connects travelers with rental car businesses that need their car relocated. It happens everywhere. Since there tends to be a flow of cars southward in New Zealand there are always large numbers of cars in places like Queenstown, Dinedin, or Christchurch. The service connects the travelers who, get the car for free, but have a time requirement and final destination. In my case I have a small Nissan Sedan that needs to go from Queenstown to Picton. I have it for 4 days, with free insurance, and I only have to pay gas. It’s a win win situation.

I named him Blue originally. Then remained him Squeaky, cause he definitely needs new brakes.

Me driving on the left side of the road, nbd.

And on the right side of the car.

Before I left Queenstown, I noticed how nice of a day it was.  So I went skydiving.

I walked into the store front of NZone and said, “I want to go skydiving.” Four hours late I was falling 172 mph straight toward the ground.

I paid for a 12,000 foot free fall, and then filled out safety forms.

After that they take you on a twenty minute bus ride to their airstrip and landing zone.

They divided us into two groups, so they plane did get too full. Most people had paid for photographs and a video, but I refrained. It was too expensive and I didn’t really care for it. I was in the second group, so I had a cup of tea and chatted.

After the first group had gone, my group got suited up. We wore a harness, goggles, gloves, a jumpsuit, a hat thing and whatever clothes we had one. The harness was to strap me to Mira, who was the pro, and who ironically didn’t spend English too well.

It wasn’t until we were all piling into the plane that I got anxious. We all sat on our buts with a person in front of them in-between their legs. Then the plane took off.

And we climbed, and climbed, and climbed. Until we got to 15000 feet. I had unintentionally gotten a few 3000 feet. At that point they open up the door and toss you out. I remember my stomach just dropping as soon as we jumped. The next 60 seconds of free fall are a blur. I remember it being REALLY cold and my eyes watering up. Then floating to the ground and landing. I didn’t pass out or anything I guess my epinephrine was just getting produced in overdrive.

It was a blast.

After that I drove to Christchurch, but not before getting another burger. :)

But that’s another story, I’m too tired now.

Cheers