Caribbean Adventures Aboard Kalalau: Queenstown, New Zealand

October 26 - 28

After a seemingly endless amount of travel, we finally arrived in the south island of New Zealand late Friday evening, October 25. We left Hong Kong on Thursday evening, so we'd been travelling for over 24 hours by the time we arrived (3 flights and a 7 hour layover in Guangzou, China). We rented a car and headed to our hostel for the evening. The next morning we woke up early and began our 6 hour drive to Queenstown. The scenery along the drive was so beautiful.

Some of the amazing views we passed along the way to Queenstown

We think we saw Diana and Ian's red van during our travels to Queentown. They sold it just before they left, but they travelled around New Zealand in a van like this which is basically a moving condo (kitchen, bed, and everything.) It's actually really common in New Zealand - most vehicles were campers or vans like this that people sleep in as they travel around the country.

When we arrived in Queenstown, the weather was cold and rainy. We checked into our place and walked around the town. The next day, the weather was similar, very cold and rainy. It actually snowed / sleeted in the afternoon. We decided to go to a pub and watch the rugby match which seemed to be the popular thing to do in Queenstown that day. Afterwards, we drove around the surrounding area. We drove up to the top of Coronet Peak which is the main ski area in Queenstown and the snow was coming down really hard there. The entire mountain was covered with snow, but unfortunately, the ski slopes had recently closed for the season. It would have been awesome to ski there!

Coronet Peak ski area, the chairlift is just to the left

This is the view looking down the road that leads to the top of the ski area. Kind of scary driving on the icy roads with our tiny rental car.

Back down at the valley at the bottom of the mountain, there were several pastures of sheep. In New Zealand, there's a sheep pasture everywhere you look. The baby lambs are really adorable, most of them just born, and running after their moms.

The next day, we had the most beautiful weather! I decided to go for a hike to the top of Bob's Peak while Gene took a nap to recover from his jet lag.

This was about halfway up the peak, looking west over Lake Wakatipu.

At the top of Bob's Peak, there are several adventure activities (Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of the world). From the top of the peak, you can bungy jump, paraglide, "luge" which is like sledding without the snow, hang glide, take a helicopter ride, or take a gondola ride. There are also several hiking trails at the top that loop around the peak providing views in every direction.

Unfortunately due to the snow the previous day, most of the trails were impossible to walk on. I attempted this one that wasn't too icy, but the views weren't that great, mainly just forest.

The view from the top of Bob's Peak looking down at Queenstown and the Remarkables mountain range in the background. Definitely one of the most incredible views I've ever seen.

Another one looking a little further west at Lake Wakatipu.

Later that evening, Gene and I went for a drive to watch the sunset over Lake Wakatipu.

Here's the view looking east towards Queenstown as the sun sets.

The view of Lake Wakatipu as we drove toward Te Anu the next day.

Here were a field of Red Deer we passed just outside of Queenstown. They're actually much bigger than the deer we have in Georgia. There are lots of pastures with these deer since many locals raise them for their venison. The export most of the venison to Germany.

Since Gene had missed the INCREDIBLE views from the top of Bob's peak, we decided to come back to Queenstown for one more day after our time in the Fiordland. We took the gondola to the top of Bob's Peak. This is a view of the AJ Hackett bungy jumping platform. We saw a couple crazy people take the plunge.