It was an early start this morning. We met at the airport at 4 am to take our 6am flight to Queenstown. It was actually nice getting to the airport that early because everything was empty. No lines and no people. We made it through all the security and stuff quickly. We ended up getting Hungry Jacks for breakfast as nothing else was open but it wasn’t overly good as they had decided not to serve half the stuff on their menu.
We boarded the flight shortly after breakfast. It was only 3 hours so it went very quickly. We saw the sun rising as we left melbourne which was lovely to watch although the brightness of the sun that high up does hurt your eyes. Anth and I watched 13 reasons why on the plane, this made the time go very quickly. When it was time to start decending we were treated to the most beautiful view flying in over Queenstown. It was nearly worth the plane ride price just to see the view from the plane. The sheer size and beauty of the mountains surrounding the plane were astonishing. The whole group sat very quietly as we came into landing. It was actually one of the best flights I have ever been on.
The view was even beautiful when we disembarked off theplane and walked across the tarmac. We were surrounded by mountains on all sides. When we got into the building we found our way through the security and passport control quickly and found our way to the Jucy counter to get our cars. We had to talk to them about our little car because we found that the boot didnt close properly. They were not able to fix this do this so the swapped the car for a swift. Chris was also presented with his apple scented trees for both cars :). We are all pretty happy with the cars they were in fairly good condition and fairly new. We are now proud renters of a huge 8 seater and a really cute swift.
We drove 15 minutes from the airport to the hotel and were amazed at the views that the drive offered us. We arrived at Bella Vista and checked in. After we had dropped our stuff into our rooms we went for a walk into the town centre to try FERGBURGER!!!! Apparently this is meant to be one of the best burgers in the world. It was only a 6 minute walk from our hotel and when we got there the line was huge. (Apparently it is always like that) We waited 10 minutes to order and about 15 minutes for our food. Finally burgers in hand we made it to the park and could eat them. They were actually quite nice and quite large. Most of us think they were worth the wait.
We walked back to get the car and decided to do a drive up to the top of the Remarkables, because the view was meant to be amazing (or at lease remarkable). To be honest the view was amazing but OMG the road we had to drive up was truly terrifying. Tom who was driving did a great job as the road was steep, windy and there were no barries. We took lots of photos and honestly the drive up was prettier then the view from the top. We made a few stops on the way down to take pictures of queenstown and saw an areoplane land on the tiny airport strip that we had landed on this morning. We headed back down the mountain. I am not sure how people drive up that mountain during snow season becuase it was truly scary in good weather.
I have a short video of the drive here.
We drove to Queenstown beach to have a look. The beach is made of pebbles but the view is beautiful. We had a coffee at a cafe near the water and relaxed. We spent the rest of the night doing some grocery shopping and heading down to eat some tacos for dinner. It was a great first day in New Zealand and I am looking foward to spending the next 2 weeks travelling with these 6 amazing people.
