Day 52 – Queenstown to Lake Tekapo

The Kiwi office told me the bus should arrive around 9.10am but it didn’t arrive until 9.20 and the bus was very small… I was also sad to see my driver was Bridget. I thought she’d be ages in front by now but clearly not. She’s not a terrible driver, it’s just she’s not fun and it feels more like she’s your teacher and you’re on a school trip rather than entertaining as we are paying her wages! This tiny bus made it’s way around to Nomads where there was another bus, which was much bigger. It is summer in New Zealand, which makes it a popular time for tourists. Although there are buses everyday, occasionally they put on two to cope with the demand, otherwise there would always be a backlog of people waiting to leave.

Our first stop was in Cromwell for breakfast and toilets. Here is where I tried my first Afghan biscuit, it’s a chocolate cookie like thing with a walnut on top, it was pretty delicious, I’m not sure what is actually in it but I would purchase another one. We then stopped to lookout over Lake Pukaki to see Mount Cook. Mount Cook has recently lost 30m so is now only 3,724 metres high. There are 22 mountains in this area that are over 3,050m high. The view from here was spectacular, Bridge said this is the best weather she’s seen here in a very long time and that we were very lucky to see it and the lake in perfect blue. She said she was here only a few days before and it was so cloudy you couldn’t even see the lake. Generally throughout New Zealand I’ve had good weather to do and see the things I’ve wanted to do but then that’s why I chose to come here in Feb/March because it’s their best weather months.

It was a straight drive through to Lake Tekapo where we arrived just gone 3pm. I ventured down to the lake and just chilled out there for a few hours, catching some rays and then went on the short walk to the shops. The ‘Church of the good shepherd’ is located just by the lake on top of a small hill and was built in January 1935. I then walked back to Lakefront Lodge and cooked myself some dinner.

Day 51 – Queenstown

I got woken up by various alarms from about 6.30am even though it seemed no one actually left my room until about 9am, so that was a delightful morning. Carina had told me the night before she and a friend were going to hire a bike and cycle to Arrowtown, as I’m not the biggest cyclist in the world and I knew it would take about 2 hours to get there, I went for the easy and lazy option of getting the bus which would take about 40minutes. There was a quick change at Frankton but other than that the journey was relatively easy.

I arrived before they did so just took a stroll around. There isn’t a lot in Arrowtown but it was a beautiful little place. It’s mostly just all on one street and the best way to describe it is the Wild Wild West. The whole place made you want to ride around on a horse, wearing a cowboy hat with lasso’s and guns. Obviously I didn’t get a chance to do any of that but hey, a girl can dream. About an hour after I arrived Carina rang and said they had just stopped at a café, which I happened to be outside of, I bought myself a refreshing iced tea and enjoyed the lovely weather. Blue skies, pure sunshine, it was exactly what the doctor ordered, well Vitamin D is good for you isn’t it?

We then walked around the old Chinese settlement, this contained a number of little huts, some were built into the hillside and others just on flat land. These are where people used to live and work, they were quite cool to look at, kinda felt like I was walking around Hobbiton again.

They left me just before 4 and from reading the timetable I expected a bus to arrive at 4.05pm… silly me was looking at the wrong side of the timetable and that’s what time a bus left Queenstown, so I actually had to wait until 4.50. Good news was on the way back I didn’t need to change at Frankton so it was just a straight ride through.

I arrived back in Queenstown with just enough time to walk to Nomads, knock on Rach & Charli’s door and then queue for the free dinner. I know I’m not staying there but they don’t check and it means A) I didn’t have to cook, B) I didn’t have to pay for it and C) I didn’t have to eat alone, a win win situation! Like every evening at Nomads although the dinner isn’t ready until 6pm a queue starts to form from about 5.40 or so, so we joint it knowing we’d be stood there for 20 minutes, the things you do for free food but we are also British so it’s just in our nature to start and join queues. The dinner was Chilli and we where we were close to the front we managed to re-join and get seconds.

It was my (and a few others) final night in Queenstown and Hayley’s birthday so we all met at the so-called ‘Wisdom River’ for drinks and then moved onto Buffalos.

Day 50 – Invercargill to Milford Sound to Queenstown.

7.30am bus out of Invercargill, last night was probably one of the best nights sleep I’ve ever had so I did not want to get up this morning. Our driver took us to Five Rivers where we met the daily kiwi Milford Sound bus, so we all moved from our bus to theirs and as I got on there were people at the back shouting my name, which is always the best feeling when you’re getting on a bus expecting not to know anyone. Rach, Charli and Laura had a spare seat as if they knew I was coming. Our first stop was in Te Amau at a small café, which is the half waypoint to Milford.

We next stopped at the Mirror Lakes. From here we weren’t far from the tunnel where we had to wait 5 minutes until we were allowed through which gave us plenty of time to run out to take photos and lucky for us it was snowing! Not a lot but it was in the air, which made the whole experience even more exciting.

The whole area is called the Fiordland National Park and it really was beautiful, the best thing I saw all day or even few days. New Zealand is all about the scenery and sometimes I get to the point where it all just looks the same and it’s always around, so you feel less impressed but I do love at least once a day you have that WOW moment.

We had one more stop before arriving in Milford and this was the The Chasm. It was a lovely little walk and there are waterfalls, lakes, rivers and just water in general everywhere here.

Our boat ride through the Milford Sound started at 1.30 and lasted just under 2 hours. It wasn’t as spectacular as they big it up to be, we did get to see some pretty amazing waterfalls and seals but the journey to the boat I enjoyed more than the boat itself. Lunch and refreshments were included in our trip but there wasn’t really enough room for everyone to sit down so it was quite an interesting experience.

There is only one road from Milford Sound to Te Amau so we got to see all the beautiful scenery on the way back too, which was a good thing as the weather was sunny on the way back so the views looked even more amazing than they did before. Four seasons in one day! Just outside Te Amau we witnessed a pretty horrific car crash, which delayed us by about an hour, it was so bad the fire-fighters had to cut the top of the car off and a helicopter came to lift the woman to hospital, not nice!

Eventually arriving back in Queenstown we dropped most of the bus off at Nomads and then we got dropped off around the corner at Base as there was no room to stay in Nomads. I opened the bottom of the bus to find only one piece of luggage left…obviously it wasn’t mine, the bus driver seemed a little confused and said my bag must be outside Nomads and someone took it off by accident. He didn’t really care and just wanted to be on his way so I just quickly dumped my small bag and food bag in base reception and ran over to Nomads. I probably got there a good 15minutes since the bus left and there was my bag in the middle of the pavement… obviously I was pleased it was still there but it was a bit ridiculous that I had to run to pick it up and then walk back to my hostel when it should never have left the bus in the first place. I hope this isn’t the restart of my terrible luck so far this trip!

I was hungry but not that hungry and as we had missed the free dinner at Nomads we decided on the bus to all meet up and go to Fergburger as a few of the girls hadn’t yet had one. Obviously I had to join them but don’t worry, I only had a small kids burger which was just as good, you can’t go to Ferg and not get one, that would be a crime! After dinner we went for a walk around the lake and bought some cheap cookies from a shop that was just about to close. Perfect timing if you ask me.

Day 47 – Queenstown

We were booked on for our canyon swings and were told to turn up at the shop from 10am to check in. Free breakfast (which is actually just some bread and spreads) is served until 9am so we got up and made our way to the kitchen just before then to get some sugar in our bodies before swinging through a canyon.

On check in we were weighed and told the procedure and told just to wait until the bus arrived. Eventually at around 11.15 we were at the Nevis bungy/swing centre. We made our way over the 70m bridge to the (I guess) launch pod where we were harnessed up and put in line, ready to take our swing.

A couple of people went in front of us and then it was my turn! You can go forwards, backwards, upside down etc, so I decided to go backwards to make my experience even crazier than it already is. They make you sit down in your harness before slowly moving you out into the middle of nowhere. He told me to smile at one camera, then another and then at Kirsty who had mine, as I did that he pressed the button and let me go. There was no time to be prepared or do anything but scream. It was amazing! They then bring you back up to the pod and they’re ready for the next person.

Kirsty and Francesca were ready to go and were just being strapped in when the guys got a message to say they needed to go and help out over at the bungy pod. All we needed was about 10minutes and we could have been out of there but no, they made them take their harnesses off and we walked back across the bridge to the centre and were told to wait there. After about 15minutes or so we were told that there was a problem with the cable car that takes the people over to the bungy pod. It was something along the lines of the break was always on so wasn’t pulling properly. They said the guys would be back at the swing in about 15mins after they were done with the bungy. We ended up waiting just over 2 hours?!! For them to do their swing, which by that point we weren’t really pumped for it and more wanted some lunch as it was now 2pm and hadn’t eaten anything since our breakfast at 9am. They still loved every minute of it, it was just disappointing that it took them so long to get it back up and running seeing as the swing had no problems in the first place.

Our plans to go to Arrowtown were now off the cards as we didn’t arrive back to Queenstown until gone 4pm. As I said, the only thing on our minds was food so obviously we walked down the road to Fergburger. This time I decided to go for a sweet chilli chicken burger, which was spicy and so tasty, just the way I like it! We sat at a table that said we needed to move from it by 4.30pm because of an overseas film crew? This crew was 1 guy and a camera from Japan… I wouldn’t exactly call them a film crew.

After here we made our way back to Nomads to shower etc ready for a lot of people’s last night together, a few people are heading south, some are heading north and others are staying there for a few extra days.