Queenstown (South Island)

Day 28

Queenstown

Kirin had to catch a flight to Wellington same day, so we went together to the airport in the morning. Again we met spanish girls, Laura and Ester, and to make it more weird, we found out that in spite of the fact that we checked in from home in the internet and they did it this morning, we got seats close to each other :7A y 7B -us and 7C y 7D - the girls. We chatted during the flight and finally they have decided to join us for the next 7 days (Queenstown-Dunedin-Christchurch) and share expenses for gas and car rental.

During the flight, we could easily see all "Lord of the rings" scenes just through the window:P


And stunning view of Mount Cook.

After some turbulences we finally landed at Queenstown airport, which is one of the most dangerous ones in NZ. Sometimes planes even don't land due to the weather conditions and instead land to Christchurch, which is more quiet. We were lucky and everything went ok! :-)


We picke up our rented car, Mazda Familia and went to meet Kevin, our CS-ing host in Queenstown and Kriin's friend. Kevin, french guy, was living in Queenstown for almost a year and working in Novotel. Since he was in tourist industry, he had a magic card which could get some discounts for tourists like us and for him actually all local attraction were for free..yeah!


Queenstown is a very small town, really 4 streets town actually, is facing stunning Wakatipu lake, surrounded by mountains. The day we arrived the weather was a bit cloudy, but the lake was still impressive.


Together with Kevin, Laura and Esther, we decided to experience “Shotover Jet”, which is one of the million of things you could do in Queenstown. Same day we booked our trip to Milford Sound, the most famous fiord in NZ and the one which appears in all post cards :-) Thanks to Kevin's "magic card" we got 20% discount for the jet and 10% for Milford sound, which was highly appreciated :-D


We arrived to the place and put on special clothes and life jackets they give you. Shotover jet is 25 min trip on a jet boat, on the mountain river, almost touching the rocks - the pilots of the boat are really crazy people haha
The views are great and the trip is exciting, the only inconvenience is the price - 80 NZ dollars (40 euros) for 25 min trip :-DD


After the jet we visited Arrowtown, which was conserved exactly like NZ was 100 years ago.





This town seemed very english indeed :-D


We went to Kevin's house - actually it was a house wth 13 rooms, where 12 people were living :-D Like Big brother house haha Brasilians, German, French, a Kiwi girl, Canadian, English - all together they were mostly working for touristic sector - agencies, selilng tickest and tours or restaurans and bars. Majority come here to work for little money but instead they can do all crazy adrenaline sports here for free or almost for free - yep, this is how it works :-D