World Tour Stops 9-11 - South Island, NZ

First stop on the south island - Queenstown, NZ

So, to be perfectly honest, we were supposed to have all of May 13-15th in Queenstown, but unfortunately we ran into a bit of a snafu with our rental car. I wasn't going to post about this, but I feel that I have to share the good things and the sometimes less than ideal ones because traveling isn't easy and sometimes things happen. We had a flight booked for 9:30 AM from Wellington to Queenstown and went to the airport early to avoid rush hour traffic. So around 7:30 we are in the car and I am trying to look up the address for where to return the rental car. We can't find it anywhere so we give a call to the rental place (Drive NZ - DO NOT BOOK WITH THEM, SPEND $10 MORE FOR A RELIABLE SERVICE) and no one is available. The billing receipt lists locations at Christchurch and Queenstown on the South Island,, and then Auckland on the North Island, but nothing for Wellington. Now, a little background - when I booked I booked knowing that we would be driving the North Island and returning in Wellington, which is what I requested when I booked through RentalCars.com. When we arrived the place was super disorganized with only one employee, the person that drove the shuttle to pick us up at the airport was also the person that worked behind the counter to get us checked in and on our way. When she gave me the rental agreement and all of the information I called out that it said car pick up and return were in the same location (Auckland) and she said, "oh, that doesn't matter, you can return the vehicle anywhere, Wellington, Queenstown, Christchurch." I stupidly believed her and let it go without revising the paperwork (will never make that mistake again). So, when we called on May 13th and there was no one that would be in office until 9AM, you can imagine my frustration. I called everywhere to see if they were partners with this company or where I could possibly return and made no headway. Long story slightly longer, we missed our flight and the first time I was able to get someone on the phone was at 9:40AM. At that time, the woman told me that we needed to return the car to Auckland. Any other option we wanted to take (ferry the car form Wellington to Christchurch and return there. etc.) would cost us $600 for returning to a different location. I was livid and drove us like a bat out of hell from Wellington to Auckland (8 hour drive that we did in 7) to catch a 6:30 flight from Auckland to Queenstown that we booked on the road up there. It was a very unfortunate day, but it was lucky that cheap seats on the evening flight were available and really only one day wasted.

Lesson Learned - always always always, get everything in writing

Queenstown - May 14-15 -

Queenstown is an adrenaline junkies playground. They have hang gliding, snowboarding/skiing/sledding/snow mobiling, a luge, bungee jumping, extreme hiking and mountain biking, kayaking, boating and so much more. It is such a cool resort town and I would say it's a must stop for anyone heading to New Zealand.

We stayed in a hostel because it is a quite pricey town to stay in, but our hostel was nice and I'd recommend it (Nomads). On our first day we went bungee jumping. I've had a couple of friends visit NZ and they all said it was a must do. One friend had done the Nevis Bungee, which is the biggest, and another friend did the bridge jump. Both looked really cool, but we went a different route and picked the #ledgebungy with AJ Hackett because the opportunity to bungee with the entirety of Queenstown in the background was too good to pass up. Highly recommend this activity, it was amazing and such a rush.

We had to get up to the platform by taking the gondola up to the Queenstown Skyline. This was pretty cool all in itself and is also where the luge is. I think in warmer weather this would be amazing, but the cold and rain wasn't perfectly ideal, but still worth doing.

Queenstown also had so many excellent food and drink options, but of course if you go you have to try Fergburger which is one of the most recommended restaurants in town. Bummed we missed a day here, I would have liked to have had the opportunity to drive out to Milford Sound, but alas, wasn't in the cards.

From Queenstown we headed across the island to the small city of Dunedin.

Dunedin - May 15-16 -

This was not originally a stop, but we have a friend that lives here now and I definitely wanted to visit. Karena and her family were so welcoming and we were so excited to meet baby Marla (only 4 months young) and Coogee the cat.

Along the way we stopped to take some cool pictures (peaches and valleys). New Zealand is amazingly beautiful with such a crazy mix of mountains, gorges, rivers, lakes and beaches. It's all climates and elevation and all so close to each other.

We also stopped at Sandfly Bay just outside of Dunedin in hopes of seeing seals or penguins but were sadly disappointed to miss any wildlife, but the views were worth the steep climb.

When we arrived to Dunedin, we told Karena of our adventures and she took us out to Alamoana Pier because she promised that they always have seals and also are across the bay from the largest Albatross nesting area in NZ. She was right. There were seals just lounging all along the spit walkway.

The we went for fish and chips and the seasonal tap at Speight's and it was exactly what we hoped for. The next morning we got going a little later because we had nice warm covers and sleeping in sounded great. We drove out and stopped by Tunnel Beach but the wind and rain were so heavy that we weren't able to do the trek down. This is a cool place for pictures if weather permits. We also had to get a picture of the iconic Rail Station that is actually an event venue as well. "The most photographed architecture in Dunedin".

Along our drive up to Christchurch we stopped at the Moeraki boulders as suggested by Karena. Definitely try to go when it's low tide because we only were able to see the few boulders that were near the shore. Planning in advance is important :).

Christchurch - May 16-18

We were fortunate enough to have another group of frisbee people to host us in Christchurch, so thank you to Rich and the whole frisbee house (Sam and Kat). It was fun to stay with international frisbee players and also great to have a bunch of ideas of where to go eat and drink that evening. We went and got some Malaysian food (I got a Malaysian burrito and it was amazing) and then we went to Fat Eddie's for live music. Definitely recommend doing both.

The next day was really our only day in Christchurch as our flight on the 18th to Brisbane was at 6AM, so we tried to go get a lot of things in and in fact only visited a couple places. We drove out to Hanmer Springs and lounged in the many mineral and sulphur pools. There are all different temperatures (all different variations of warm and hot) which was great for a colder day. Fun event and only set us back about $20.

After a wonderfully relaxing pool day we stopped at Pegasus Bay Winery on the way back down to Christchurch. We got ate some cheese and did a wine tasting and essentially had the most perfectly romantic day!

Once arriving back in town we went by the Chrischurch Earthquake memorial I know that we were not present and did not know anyone that was affected, but with all human tragedy there is an emotional response. It is a really well done memorial and speaks both to the tragedy and the numerous lives that were lost and changed forever.

This was our last bit of NZ. We got dinner with the frisbee crew Madam Woo's and then to sleep for an early 4AM wake up.

Bye NZ - off to Aussie