Catching Up with Friends in Queenstown

After our tramp on the Routeburn Track, we returned to Queenstown for the next portion of our trip, the friends and family portion! After a month and a half of only fleeting friendships with fellow travelers, we were extremely excited to meet up with Max and Kristan for a few days. They arrived in the afternoon, and we all had so much to update each other on that we filled up the rest of the day with overlapping conversations and stories about everything we’d each discovered in the last couple of months.

With great weather over the next few days and summer break not quite having started, we had our choice of sunny, crowd-free activities (which is not often the case in Queenstown, I expect). We spent the first morning jetboating – zooming down a dramatic river gorge in a steel-hulled, jet-engine (i.e. internal turbine) powered boat – and followed it up with a lovely trip up the Queenstown gondola and some wandering around town. The second morning we provided emotional and photographic support while M+K went bungee jumping, followed by a great afternoon of wine tasting in Central Otago. The Pinots here are excellent. And the third morning we wrapped up our stay with a calm cruise on Lake Wakatipu. Amazingly we had the whole 170-person-capacity boat to ourselves (plus 2 crew members) for most of the journey. Crewman Mike pointed out John Travolta’s and Sir Peter Jackson’s beautiful lakeside houses to us on the return journey too – they seem to be doing ok as far as real estate is concerned.

The activity list makes it sound like an awesome weekend, which it was – but the best parts at their core were definitely getting to share a bit of NZ with good friends, and having a great time doing so. So anyone out there reading, let us know if you get a bit antsy and fancy a quick NZ trip between now and the end of Jan.  : )