Journal #1: Queenstown
Date: 3/2/2016
Cover Photo: “Airplane, Airplane”
Sheep Spotted: 0

8+ years in the making and I’ve finally set foot in New Zealand! Also many years in the making- my first blog post! I’m finally jumping on the blogging bandwagon (blogwagon?) primarily because it is both waaay easier then writing in a journal and it gives my readers (I’m conservatively expecting millions) the ability to pretentious tell me “I already know what you did on your trip” when I finally return home.

But I digress- I’m counting today’s post as day #1 primarily because A) I had no internet last night B) My night at the “iBis Budget Airport Hotel” in Auckland just wasn’t that eventful.

Today I arrived into Queenstown which is on a lake and completely surrounded by mountains. About 90% of the photos of New Zealand are taken in this area because it is extremely dramatic- you could take your camera, spin around 10 times, and fire the shutter in a random direction and probably get a cool photo. That said- due to the terrain, getting anywhere involves either driving or very steep uphill hiking. Today I did a combination of both:

Driving: Driving in Queenstown is thankfully very easy. They drive on the left here and place the steering wheel on the right- which would be fine, except they also (for no damn reason!) reverse the turning blinker lever so that it’s on the right and the windshield wipers are on the left. Needless to say- my windshield remained very clean today.

They also apparently have a profound hatred for intersections and instead use a connected series of tiny little “baby” roundabouts- driving through the town legitimately feels like driving down Lombard street (SF reference- Google it and it will make sense).

All that said- I arrived safely at my Airbnb where I met my host ‘Philip’- he works as a tour guide and lived here for many years. I needed something to do today, so he recommended going up to the Queenstown Gondola- which was a “short hike away.”

Anyways- 5-6 miles of uphill hiking later I reached the top of ridge that the Gondola runs up to. The views up there are spectacular and because it’s New Zealand, there are about 20 different extreme sports you can participate in from there- including (but not limited to): Parachute Gliding, Mountain Biking, Bungee Jumping, Ziplining(shred some “gnar gnar”), and my personal favorite, a giant Luge Track which wraps around the entire hill.

After about 2 hours on the hill, I headed back to Philip’s place. Due to where we are in the world, the day’s are absurdly long here: the sun comes up at 7am and doesn’t start going down till close to 8:30p. The good news with that is that you can hike pretty much all day. The bad news is that you feel like an old person when you go to dinner- I went to this Indian restaurant (hey- it was $14 curry night) at 7pm and it was still broad daylight outside.

Anywho- that’s about all I have to report from today. Tomorrow I may or may not be doing an all-day hike up to Ben Lomond peak with Philip’s “Liverpool mates” that I haven’t met yet. Will blog either way!

Photo Title: Airplane, Airplane Sorry I’m Late
Description: The Gondola and Luge Track looking over Queenstown, NZ.