we flew into queenstown early on saturday morning, the flight in was not nearly as scary as i thought it would be. it was actually a very breath taking and powerful experience. we flew in as the sun was rising over the snow capped mountains. looking out the window i felt like i could reach my hand out and touch the mountain side, and grab a little snow to snack on. just beautiful. landing we realized just how much of a weather change we were in for. i can't exactly recall but i think it was something like -7 celsius when we landed. brrr. we took a bus into town found our way to our hostel (the base) and began a wonderful day of exploring queenstown.
we found a cafe where we could sit by the fire to enjoy our hot chocolate and breakfast. it was still pretty early and we just wanted to be able to relax and be warm. from here we found our way to the waterfront. ughh it was awesome. the water was so clear and the sun was shinning and the mountains were covered in snow. right along the waterfront there was a cute little market with some live music (wagon wheel was playing! how great) and booths selling wool and greenstone (i'll have to explain this later) and fun little gifts like a farmers market. after wandering around for awhile we were unsure of what we should tackle for the day so we decided to head to the gondola ride to the top of queenstown and see what was happening up there.
the gondola pretty much went straight up, a little scary for me being afraid of heights and all but the view was stunning. we made our way to a little lookout where we could see all of queenstown below us, and the mountains meeting us. it was so crazy that on the last day of june we were standing in the snow! then we took another little ski lift and did a luge down, it was different than the luge you see on tv during the olympics and stuff, didn't take nearly as much skill and was much slower, but still tons of fun!!
after hanging out at the top a little longer enjoying the warm sun in the midst of the snow, we headed back into town. we were ready to experience the famous ferg burger! everyone told me we had to eat here when we went to queenstown, it was a tiny little restaurant that was filled to the brim with people and orders being shouted out. it took us about forty-five minutes to get our burgers but it was so worth it. i played it safe and went for a falafel burger to avoid starting my acid up but it was still amazing.
we ate and rested and then headed out for our first night on the town. we befriended our roommates, two guys from australia and a girl from germany and had quite a fun crew. queenstown is full of young people, it was a lot of fun!
flying into queenstown.
first meal fresh off the plane.
lookout at the top of the gondola.
ski lift ride to top of the luge.
line of burger's at ferg... delish!
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