Road Trip Through New Zealand: Queenstown, Wanaka and Arrowtown

     After having spent two months in Asia visiting my family, it was time to make my exit. I wasn't quite ready to head home just yet, plus, snow was still awaiting me back home. Instead, I chose to join my best friend in New Zealand for a road trip of a lifetime. My friend, Amanda, has been living and working in Queenstown, New Zealand since November. I hadn't bothered to visit her when she lived in Ireland the year before as I had already been there and I was a student for the second-time around so I was pretty much broke all the time.

Queenstown

     Amanda had quit working on May 12th so we would have from then until June 25th for our road trip. I arrived in Queenstown on Thursday, May 15th and it was a pretty easy-going kind of day; she was hungover from a wedding party the night before. We explored Queenstown for the first week as she had some last minute things to get together: going away parties, returning work items, getting her car fixed/ready for a long haul drive, etc. On one of the afternoons it was a beautiful day, so we hiked up Queenstown Hill. It's a pretty easy hike and close to the top there is a rest area with an artistic "basket" sculpture in which people sit in for a rest and to take in the beautiful scenery.

     Even though it was a beautiful sunny day in May, it is the beginning of winter in New Zealand and the air can get quite cold. The views were well worth the hike though. We headed back down the hill and into town. There was another good hill with a gondola, but we never got the chance to hike it together. For the rest of my time in Queenstown the weather was pretty miserable. If you do get the chance you may want to hike up the hill and take the gondola (cable car) down.

Queenstown

    Queenstown isn't a large city, nor will you meet many locals. It's more like Banff (Alberta) or Whistler (British Columbia). It's a tourist town with lots of ski resorts, restaurants/bars. Almost everyone who lives there are foreigners (in their twenties) on working holidays. It is pretty and it has a very lively night-life but it isn't very interesting if you're not a skier or into clubbing; you wouldn't need to spend much time there.

Wanaka

     Once our car was ready to go we decided to take a day trip to Wanaka and Arrowtown, as they aren't too far away and we didn't want to get stranded in the middle of nowhere, so this was our "test drive" before our big journey. It wasn't the most beautiful of days but we were greeted by a lovely rainbow when we arrived in Wanaka. We didn't do much there, ate some lunch and walked along the beach. Too bad it was so cold out because there was a dock floating by its lonesome in the water that was just calling my name.




     While towards Arrowtown from Wanaka, there is a fence with tons of bras, I don't know how many. It goes on forever, and I literally mean forever. I don't know why people place their bras on the fence, but it's quite a sight. You can find it driving on SH6.


 
   
     Later on down the road we came to a full stop ass there was a hawk in the middle of the road eating the carcass of an animal. We sat there and watched while I struggled to get a picture but to no avail. When I finally had my camera ready, the hawk started flying away with the animal dangling from its mouth, but the bird dropped it. He flew down to it but by this time he was pretty far away, so my picture turned out horribly. I'm definitely making sure to buy a new camera before my next big adventure! Also along this route to Arrowtown were a couple of scenic lookout stops.

     Arrowtown was an interesting place; it's styled in an old Western style. We didn't do much there, just drove around and visited one of Amanda's old roommates.

Arrowtown

     After having attended a couple of good-bye parties and finally getting everything fixed on Amanda's car, so it could pass the safety test that is required every 6 months, it was finally time to head south to Bluff to start our road trip from the very southern tip to the very northern tip of New Zealand. It was going to be one exciting six-week adventure!