Greetings from Queenstown!
When do we get to rest? When we’re dead. You heard me.
We get up Friday morning and have a long six-hour drive ahead of us to Queenstown. The day is brisk but sunny. Those heli-bastards will probably be going up to the glacier in the copters today, no problem. But we don’t care. We’ve gotten our glacier fix and are eager to move on to the next adventure.
The drive from Franz Josef to Queenstown is an embarrassment of riches. The views in the South Island just keep hurting our feelings. It hurts to look! It burns! We see so many postcard views of mountains and more glaciers upon glaciers that we feel like we will drive ourselves into a ditch. Each turn yields more and more awe-inspiring views. The land covers all different terrain within a five-minute drive: beaches with huge swells, rainforests, mountains with lush vegetation, mountains with cascading waterfalls. We have to pull over every ten minutes to take pictures. After about four hours of this, Shalini and I start to bicker and argue. We are finally getting on each other’s nerves, after more than a week straight of spending 24 hours/day together non-stop. We’re right on schedule, I guess. I start getting annoyed that Shalini has to take a photograph every five minutes, and she starts getting annoyed with my know-it-all attitude. But it’s too stupid to stay mad when you have such insane surroundings. Our bogus little car fights are dwarfed by the mountainous majesty. The weather changes as fast as our moods. It is bright and sunny one minute, then we drive through misty valleys and then raging downpours and then back again to joyous sun. It’s the most schizophrenic weather ever. We see endless pastures of grazing sheep and deer. Simply incredible.
But we kind of hate each other by hour five. Poor Shalini is driving the entire time (by choice, she loves to drive) and she’s got to be feeling pretty knackered. Is it possible that we are finally jaded by the glorious alpine scenery? The impossible mountains that clamor endlessly up to the sky? We drive in silence for most of the last hour. Finally, in the darkness, we make it into amazing Queenstown. It is absolutely one incredible town. Built on the hills, with modern homes and apartment littering the mountainous swells—all circling the still waters of Lake Wakatipu. The mesmerizing Remarkables and Eyre mountains flank you at every turn. It’s fake! It’s not real!
In case you didn’t know it, Queenstown is the adventure capital of the world. Bungee jumping was invented here, and the city knows no rest from adrenaline-surging activity. You can skydive, paraglide and freefall--all in a day’s work. We have come here to die, or at least to luge down the mountain. We check into our hotel, dog-tired and haggard, but exhilarated by this exciting new city. But we’re still kind of mad at each other.
The first thing we notice when we walk out of our hotel to dinner is that it is cold as shit. The temperature has definitely dropped about 20 degrees from our time in Franz Josef. It’s about 30 degrees outside. The second thing we notice is that fall’s colors are really raging here. Queenstown is by far one of the most exciting and beautiful cities I’ve ever seen in my travels. The streets are teaming with cute shops and restaurants. It feels very cosmopolitan and progressive. Such a cool town.
The people here are different, too. EVERYONE is friendly and this time it feels genuine. This is how we pictured the Kiwis to be: they are full of life and zest and so nice and fun. Good energy radiates from this town. It’s a buzz you can’t help but absorb. We go to dinner at a popular hangout called Winnie’s. It’s got a warm fire and is crowded and bustling with hot New Zealand men who all look like rugby players. What’s not to love?
Saturday, May 3
This is our day to be local in New Zealand. Gotta go for the adrenaline buzz today. We start our morning with a delicious breakfast at Joe’s Garage, a local hangout that’s hard to find. You walk in and just feel like you’re among the peoples. Nobody is a tourist here. This makes us feel pretty awesome. We have a delicious breakfast and chat with the owner, who is just as nice as can be. We decide we will probably have breakfast here every day we’re in town.
Next, we have to return our rental car. This time we remember to get gas beforehand. The price of gas continues to astound us. We are hemorrhaging money here. Can’t think about that now, because it’s time to take a ride on the Shotover Jet--one of Queenstown’s most famous jet boat rides. It shoots you through rocky canyons down the Shotover River at breakneck speed, doing multiple 360 turns that spray enough water on you to make your teeth chatter in this freezing weather. We have to put on life jackets and cannot wear loose hats or sunglasses that will blow off. Shalini is primed and ready with her waterproof camera, god bless her. Everyone screams the entire ride like we’re on the most bad-ass rollercoaster ever. We laugh ourselves silly, getting sprayed in the face and enjoying the spectacular river views. Outstanding.
Conquering Shotover
When we de-boat, my back is soaking and Shalini’s hair is fairly wet, but otherwise we are pumped and eager for our next daredevil outing today: a skyline gondola ride up mountain where we enjoy soaring views of the mountains and lake. As we ascend, we see multiple paragliders coming down the mountain. Not on our itinerary today, but a “maybe” down the line. But we can’t consider this for long, because we do the luge down the mountain. We put on goofy-looking helmets and climb into little luge cars and declare that we will race each other to do the death! Actually, Shalini skirts ahead of me and finishes two seconds faster. I was robbed!
Is it really only 5:30pm now? We are starving from our day’s punishing activity, so we duck into a seafood place called Fishbone for dinner. They have the famous Bluff oysters in season. I have been anticipating these oysters since we left Chicago. By now, they are mythic to me. My sister, Sekita, has told me all about them. It makes my mouth water. I must have them. We order a half-dozen in the raw. I am so excited I have to get Shalini to take a picture of me and the oysters. The oysters are everything I had hoped they would be: big, juicy and briny as hell. Just my type. I can’t stand how good they are. When I eat the last one, I am sullen and forlorn.
But then we start drinking wine, and Shalini regales me with her fantastic recall of old Saturday Nigh Live skits. The girl has preternatural memory for this show. It’s uncanny. She makes me laugh so hard by imitating the old school casts of Eddie Murphy (C-I-L-L my landlord) et al. At times, I am doubled over in pain and tears, I am laughing so hard. The wine keeps flowing. We choose from great local vineyards such as Gibbston Valley and Chard Farm. Fantastic wines, all of them. Shalini gets me good and drunk and we talk into the night. Then we are ready for some action…we go back to Winnie’s to do more drinking and hopefully meet some fun dudes, but for some reason the bar tonight is dead. Where did all the cute boys go? Guess we’re going to have to meet them tomorrow on our wine tour.
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