10.01.2014Queenstown – Our Base in NZ’s South

To avoid driving from Auckland to Queenstown and back up to Auckland, from where our connection flight to Australia will continue, we decided to fly south to Queenstown and drive back up. Since most people decide to drive south instead of north, the car companies offer especially attractive rates for people driving the cars back north. So after spending our first days in NZ in Auckland we flew south.
Queenstown lies in Otago in the southwest of NZ’s South Island. The combination of Lake Wakatipu and the soaring Remarkables in the background are a great combination for spectacular views.
Once we rid ourselves from our luggage we walked through the bustling center and to Queenstown Bay at Lake Wakatipu.

In the afternoon we stopped at Fergburger, Queenstowns famous burger place and we each enjoyed one of their gourmet burgers. The place was really amazing and no matter what time we passed by, there was always a queue of people starting from 10 o’clock in the morning.
Our favorites were the Southern Swine burger (Prime New Zealand beef, American streaky bacon, lettuce, tomato, red onion, avocado, aioli & tomato, relish) and the Tropical Swine burger (Prime New Zealand beef, American streaky bacon, cheddar cheese, pineapple, lettuce, tomato, red onion, aioli & tomato, relish).

In the late afternoon we took the Skyline Gondola up to Bobs Peak from where one has awe-inspiring views of Queenstown, the lake and all that surrounds it.

Lake Wakatipu is New Zealand’s longest (around 75 km) and third largest lake. It was carved out by a series of glaciers over a period of hundreds of thousands of years. When the last glaciers began retreating around 18’000 years ago, the streams and rivers deposited huge amounts of gravel along the lake shore. Queenstown is built on such deposits too.

Located on the summit of Bobs Peak there is a skyline luge track. We couldn’t resist riding the Luge far above Queenstown with that great view. And since we were almost the only luge riders we enjoyed racing each other down the tracks multiple times 🙂

Waiting for the sun to set over Queenstown:

Tini quickly made a new friend, Mr. Red Jelly Bean:

And while we kept waiting for the sun to set, we savored some of NZ’s beers and the panoramic view over the city.

Unfortunately we did not bring the tripod, so the picture is a little blurred. But the birds view of illuminated Queenstown in front of the lake and surrounded by mountains was impressive:

The upcoming days in Queenstown we used for working out our route, work on the blog, walking around Queenstown and outings in the vicinity. We will cover those in the upcoming posts. For several days Queenstown was our home base, from where we started our little trips and adventures.

After the beers on Bobs Peak we also decided to switch to wines and do some serious New Zealand wine tasting from now on. One of our first was this Chardonnay:

We also spent time with cooking and barbecuing. On one evening us “Krauts” prepared sausages with potatoes and sauerkraut refined with pieces of apple. With some Dijon mustard the dish turned out very delicious:

And of course a matching wine. We quickly noticed, that we much preferred New Zealand’s white wines over its red ones.

On one of the other evenings we cooked a dish with rice. Since we still had very much rice left we had the great idea to add milk, cut apricots and some vanilla marrow into it. That was the best dessert-idea ever!

We used the marrow of two of our Tahitian vanilla hulls and cooked it until the rice had absorbed all the milk. The smell was delicious and it tasted fantastic. The best desert we ever made ourselves on this trip!

This dessert and the view from our cooking table over Queenstown at the campsite made this an unforgettable experience:

In the upcoming posts we will cover the adventures we experienced in and around Queenstown!