Queenstown and Invercargill

Monday April 10

On Monday, we rose early, assembled our bags and departed via the Airport Bus to the Wellington Airport. We were off to Queenstown on the South Island. The flight was a short one, just about an hour and the views along the way were stunning!

Once we touched down, we got an Uber to our Air BNB and got settled. There was some construction in our area but the view was gorgeous nonetheless. We walked into town, looked around and got lunches. It is much bigger than Rangeley Maine where my family goes each July but it had a similar vibe. Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of the world but we didn’t plan to do any of those activities like getting shot over a canyon or jumping off a bridge with a bungee cord. We did get ice cream though from a gelato place. I don’t think that counts as adventure but it was yummy!

My dad and I went on a hike up Queenstown Hill and got a breathtaking look at the whole area surrounding Queenstown! It was simply jawdroppingly epic.

We had meat and vegetarian pies (a New Zealand and Australian staple) for dinner that my mom graciously picked up for us. I also introduced my parents to my favorite show here in New Zealand. It is called Educators and it is only available in New Zealand. It is about some absurd terrible teachers and is very funny!

Tuesday April 11

This was another early morning. We had booked a boat tour of Milford Sound which required us to walk to a nearby hotel for our pickup at 7:30am. At the pickup point, we met a friendly woman from Switzerland who was driving a camper around New Zealand. The tour bus picked us up and we began a five hour ride to the fjords. We stopped at a few sites along the the way but it was mainly just a lot of shlepping.

Around 1:30pm, we arrived at the main attraction: Milford Sound. We were loaded onto a boat and took a little trip through the fjords. It was quite pretty and we saw some intense waterfalls.

Then it was another long trudge back to Queenstown. We ended back at our place at 8:30. What a day!

Wednesday April 12

Unfortunately, it was the day we had to leave Queenstown. My dad and I got up at sunrise and took a walk around the gardens and gazed at the gorgeous place that is Queenstown. We packed up our luggage and met up with Jane outside a lovely little cafe. In case you don’t remember, Jane is the main New Zealand leader for my Arcadia Abroad program. She lives in Queenstown so we arranged to meet up so she could meet my parents. We had a lovely talk. We even ran into our Switzerland friend from yesterday! Perhaps we are already locals here in Queenstown.

After Jane headed out, we ordered some delicious brunch from the cafe and ate outside. My dad and I also went for a stroll and found a homemade chocolate and ice cream place where I naturally ordered a chocolate popsicle dipped in chocolate. YUM!

We found our way to the bus pickup to begin our ride to Invercargill. The bus was really just a small van with around eight of us on board. The driver was super chill and basically the whole idea of the business is they take passengers from Queenstown to Invercargill and back again without going through Dunedin which would take forever. It was a very pleasant ride with a quick stop at an interesting cafe.

Invercargill is the southernmost and westernmost city in New Zealand. It is a very industrial city and not the most glamorous. We are staying here a night and then will be heading out to Stewart Island tomorrow! We took a walk around Invercargill to get a better feel for it. We wanted to go to the big car museum called Bill Richardson Transport World and the Dig It excavation playground that Invercargill is known for but both were closed. We instead went to a very famous hardware store named E Hayes which has lots of old motorcycles and vehicles on display. Cars seem to be a big thing here in Invercargill.

We walked around a bit more, bought some breakfast food from a Countdown, ordered dinner from our hotel and watched some more Educators before calling it a day.

Tomorrow, we depart for the third major island of New Zealand: Stewart Island. It is much smaller than the main two islands and not nearly as popular of a destination. Only 402 people live there. Time to make it 405.