Road to Queenstown - Makaroa and Wanaka
Right, like I said before, the next major stop was Queenstown, but before we could get there, we had to stop overnight in a little campground called Makaroa. So the entire day after Franz Josef was spent on the bus and stopping periodically for pictures. The first of these stops was at a place called Lake Murchison, more commonly known as the Reflection Pool. On a clear day, you can get a really cool shot of the mountains perfectly mirrored in the water, so we hopped off the bus for that. Unfortunately, it was about a thirty minute return walk, and we only technically had twenty minutes to get coffee and be back on the road, but some of us decided to try and power-walk it anyway. We didn’t actually succeed, though, because we were slightly late for the official rendezvous. I think the photos made it worth it, though. It was a bit cloudy that day, but not enough to spoil the effect. Here are the pics to prove it.
Reflection Lake. Definitely worth the walk.
After that, it was just hour after hour of trees, beach, cliff, road, sheep, etc. for half the day. To make it a little more interesting and keep us awake, Caas proposed a dare game for the bus to participate in. Basically, people could pose challenges or pranks, and anyone who took them up on them would receive a set number of points, depending on how gutsy it was. We all put in two dollars for it, and the top three winners received somewhere between $10 and $30 dollars in cash to go towards accommodation or booze, whichever was deemed more important. I abstained from competing because it was more fun to watch than participate, and some of them got increasingly ridiculous throughout the day.
The first challenge was to moon a car for twenty points, which was a bit juvenile and uninspired, but several boys enthusiastically answered the call for that dare. At the next bathroom stop, Caas dared someone to climb on top of the bus and do the haka, which Robertgoddammit did without hesitation. I should explain about Robert. He’s a middle-aged American guy that was on our bus, originally from New York but now living in San Francisco, and next to all of the British boys, he was a definite “man’s man.” Very tough and just a touch crazy. Basically, when people were first starting to learn everyone else’s name, some unfortunate soul said, “Oh, what’s your name? Robert? Can I call you Rob?” to which he replied, “No, my name is Robert, Goddammit” with a face that could crush stone. Ever since then, he’s been Robertgoddammit, which is oddly fitting for him. Natalie thinks it goes well with his brash, let’s-go-do-it-by-God American attitude, so it’s sort of stuck and is really funny when said casually. “Let’s see, who are we missing? Nick’s still getting ready and Lindsay’s in the bathroom. So that just leaves Alec, Nathan, Robertgoddamit, and Tracey. Okay, that’s cool.” He’s a pretty interesting guy and just another colorful character for the bus.
Anyways, while he was doing a full-on haka like he’d been born for it, three guys stripped down to their birthday suits and went skinny dipping in the river for another fifty points. The joke was on them, though, when the crazy Jewish girl stole their clothes and ran away with them. Plus the water was super cold and infested with sand flies. Poor guys. Another challenge was to guess how many one-way bridges there were between Franz Josef and Makaroa. From the way Caas was hinting about that particular game, we all got the idea that there must be quite a few, and we were right. That area was just packed with them, sometimes three in the space of a mile, but you didn’t notice them much because of the lack of traffic. We had to guess somewhere between 1 and 100, and I put down 28. Guess what the winning number was. 27. How awesome am I? So I was declared the winner by default because no one guessed 27, but I didn’t actually get anything for it. Just pride and honor.
Our scenery out the right side of the bus
Right, where was I? Oh yeah, the boring bus ride. The next break was on the side of the road about halfway through the trip. There was a forest path leading out towards the water, and Caas told us that a pretty awesome waterfall was on the other side. Not one to doubt good advice, I joined the rest of the group in trekking down there. We had been skirting the river all morning, and I had had glances of rapids and waterfalls from between the trees. That whole area us just one big reservoir spilling over, so there are tons of cool sights to see on the side of the road. This one was supposed to be pretty spectacular, though. As we were on the way, the Jewish lady (God, why can’t I remember her name?) posed another challenge to Caas - climb up into a tree like a monkey and make faces. He was only too happy to oblige her on that, so I now have several photos of him doing exactly that. Everyone else seemed content to just chill out in the area around the waterfall and skip stones off the water. Like everything in New Zealand, I’m always amazed by the vibrancy of the colors and the utter awesomeness of the scenery. This particular stop was another case in point.
Caas up in a tree and boys skipping rocks
Also throughout the day, most of the group was slowly eaten alive by sandflies. They’re particularly nasty pests that tend to lurk near water on the West Coast, and once you’re bitten, they swell up and itch like crazy. Then they get sore and can even leave a scar. Poor Natalie got bitten on her ankle and wasn’t really able to enjoy Queenstown because it got infected. She had to go see a doctor and everything because it was all red and inflamed. The entire inside of the bus was an expression of modern art entitled “Death to Sandfly” with their remains smeared all over the windows. For some weird reason, though, I have not been bitten once in my entire time here in New Zealand. I don’t know what it is, but they just don’t go after me, even though I don’t wear bug spray or anything. It might have to do with the fact that I don’t wear shorts or flip flops, but who knows? Maybe they should take a sample of my blood and make it into a serum or something because they obviously don’t go for it.
The rest of the drive was pretty much like that: drive, stop, take pictures, do a dare, rinse, and repeat. Alec answered one challenge for dancing up and down the aisle of the bus to a Beyonce song, and we continued to see some nice scenery out the sandfly-streaked windows. Not long before Makaroa, the gang stopped for one last chance to jump in a river, but about half of us stayed on the bus. It was getting cold and had started to drizzle by that point, so we were just content to sit and wait for them to make their point and come back. I guess there’s not a whole lot to do at Makaroa except rafting and singing karaoke. Due to the weather and the late hour, no one really wanted to go rafting, and we were too tired from the long drive to do any karaoke. I’ve heard some people mention something about hugging a tree in Makaroa, but I’ll never really know what that was about since we all just spent the evening inside, watching the rain. It’s a shame that we got there so late in the day, too, because the cabins that they gave us were pretty cool - kind of like miniature chalets with sloping roofs and cozy interiors. We had a choice of four different meals for $10 - fish and chips, bangers and mash, burger and fries, or vegetarian pasta. I went with the bangers and mash, and apparently that was the only one worth eating. Everyone else complained about their frozen or poor-tasting food while I got to enjoy venison sausages and mashed potatoes. After that, we all made out ways back to our cabins and went to bed.
Our cabins in Makaroa
The next morning arrived with much better weather. The rain had eased off overnight, so we were able to enjoy a clear sky on our way out to Wanaka. Just as we were pulling out of Makaroa, however, I turned back and got a few nice shots of some low-lying fog floating over the campground. There are some perks to waking up early every once in a while. The rest of that day was devoted to getting to Queenstown, so it was another big driving day. Our first big stop was in Wanaka, sort of a Diet Queenstown with a similar appeal but with about 75% of its adrenaline. As we got closer, we got some impressive views of Lake Wanaka and some other surrounding lakes. We stopped at two separate lookout points just because the views were so pretty. For my LOTR fans out there, the hills around Wanaka were used for the Ring Goes South scene with a lot of those panoramic shots after leaving Rivendell. You can probably see the similarity in the photos.
Lake Wanaka and the surrounding lakes
We finally pulled into Wanaka around 11am or so, and Caas told us that we could hang out there for over an hour since there was no set time limit for the day. I don’t really understand the reasoning of Stray sometimes, because as cool as Makaroa was for staying the night, it would have made a lot more sense to just drive another two or three hours and stay in Wanaka for the night. There’s a lot more to do there, for one thing, and the town is just gorgeous. It’s actually listed as one of the major stops of the South Island in most NZ guide books, and yet we didn’t even get to stop there long enough to properly see it all. Shame. Maybe I’ll try to go back there sometime before I leave the country.
Coming into Wanaka
So while Caas was off getting fuel in the bus, we all toured around the town and took pictures. I partnered up with Mirva again because she was going to be leaving soon, and I wanted to hang with her a bit before we parted ways. She had dropped her camera into a glacial pool on Franz Josef two days before, so she desperately needed a new one. Apparently it was the second camera that had broken on her in the last couple months, so she’s either got really bad luck or is really clumsy. I tagged along with her to the tech shop, but when it was clear that the saleswoman was just going to chat with her for a while, I went off on my own to look in some souvenir shops and get some cash out of the ATM. I also stopped at the iSite to get a map of town for exploring. By the time I made it back to the shop, Mirva had decided on one particular camera that was around $250 or $300, which was one of the cheaper ones available. Poor girl. She had to leave it at the store to charge the battery, so while that was going on, we decided to stop in a café for lunch. I had this amazing vegetarian melt with roasted eggplant on foccacia bread and a nice chai latte. By that point, we had about half of our time left to sight-see.
My amazing lunch stop
Luckily, Wanaka is not only a pretty place to look at, but it’s also very small as well. We were able to see the majority of the main streets in the space of half an hour or so, so that worked out for us. All in all, it seemed like a very pleasant day with families out having picnics on the beach, dogs running in the surf, and little kids playing in the park. I especially liked the area just at the water’s edge that had a giant willow tree trailing out into the lake and little diving spots marked by platforms. One couple was even driving this kind of strange aquatic tractor on the surface of the lake. We then moved further into town and found a nice park with the creek running into the lake and a playground packed with kids. Again, I wish we could have stayed longer, but I think we managed to see a great deal of Wanaka anyways. Before we knew it, it was time to get back into the bus - ours was named “Richard,” by the way - and drive onwards. We picked up a few people on the outskirts of town who had gone to a place called Puzzle World, a sort of amusement park of mazes and riddles, and then we grabbed the skydivers who had done that instead. And yes, Alec was among them. Poor guy looked like he was lucky to be alive.
Even more Wanaka
We continued down the road a bit longer, until Caas pointed out a specific activity not endorsed by Stray. Basically, if anyone got hurt, he had nothing to do with it. Since the prank war was still in full swing, he dared anyone brave enough to jump off this overpass bridge into the river below. I think this was just outside of Cromwell, and it was starting to cloud over a bit. I would have considered it, perhaps, if the water hadn’t been freezing and my swimsuit locked underneath the bus in my duffel, but I didn’t really have any desire to jump. I will go skydiving and bungy jumping because, despite what people seem to think, they’re both really safe statistically, but jumping from a high place into water where you can’t see how deep it is seems kind of…dumb. But Caas seemed like he’d done it before to know that it was deep enough, so he got a few idiots to volunteer. One or two quickly became five, and before we knew it, ten crazy people were lined up to jump off. I have no idea where they kept their suits to have them out so quickly…or how they changed. So they all jumped off one at a time, and then they all spaced themselves across the bridge for the finale, all of them jumping at the same time. I have video of it, and surprise, surprise, it was freezing cold. I think that was one dare that actually backfired for most of them, but the rest of us found it hilarious.
Idiots
One last stop before Queenstown was a cute little fruit stand selling all sorts of things grown in the area. Out of curiosity, I tried a “plumot” - apparently a plum crossed with an apricot - and some kiwi fruit chocolate. The plumot was nice - tasted sort of like an apricot with a plum’s texture - and the chocolate…tasted pretty much like chocolate with the faintest aftertaste of kiwi fruit. I wasn’t going to complain because I was craving chocolate at the moment, but people might want to consider that before paying extra for something that doesn’t really taste that different.
A plumot
Then we got stuck in a little bit of road construction just outside of Queenstown. To make it worth our while, two more challenges were issued. The first was to run outside shirtless (for guys, presumably), jump over the fence next to the road, and crawl around on all fours mooing like a cow. Nathan, Daniel, Nick, and Edwin answered that particular call and didn’t even hesitate about it. In plain sight of all the other stopped cars, they ran out like crazy people and started pawing around in the grass. I felt bad for them, but that didn’t stop me from taking several pictures. The other challenge was completed by Nathan alone: kiss a road worker. Luckily for him, there happened to be an attractive lady road worker on this particular site, so he didn’t have to sidle up to a brawny construction worker kind of guy. We got watch him sneak down and get down on his knees to beg for a kiss on the cheek, so that was pretty amusing.
More idiots
Right after that, the road work let up and we were able to continue on to our final stop - the site of the original AJ Hackett bungy jump over the Kawarau Bridge, the first bungy in the world. Some crazy kiwis jumped off of it in the ’80s after seeing some equally crazy tribesmen do it with jungle vines in Indonesia, and after that, bungy jumping was born. So the top three bungy jumps to do in Queenstown are the Kawarau Bridge, the Ledge (a freestyle jump where you can do flips or whatever in a harness), and the Nevis (one of the top five highest jumps in the world). The deal was that if at least ten of us from Stray signed up for one of the three during our stay in Queenstown, we would each get $20 off the already-discounted price, thanks to our Stray passes. Since our bus was awesome and included a bunch of insane people, I think we surpassed that count by at least four or five people. In any case, we all crowded into the building to watch the introductory DVD about the options and history and then went out to the viewing platform to watch people jump off. The Ledge is right over Queenstown, up by the gondolas, and the Nevis is way out of town in a secluded mountain valley that only jumpers go to, so the bridge is the best one to actually watch.
The bridge
If anyone felt particularly pumped that afternoon, we had the option of doing it right there, but I was pretty tired from the drive and wanted to save my bungy experience for a later date. What I ended up doing was booking myself onto the Nevis for March 17th. That’s right, Saint Patrick’s Day. Epic. So since it was the 15th when we arrived - also cool as the Ides of March - I had some time to psych myself up for it. We watched as a couple of German girls threw themselves off the bridge, and then Caas convinced the operators to let him do it for free. Sometimes being a Stray bus driver has perks, apparently. So we stayed there for a good hour or so, watching our fellow Straymates get dunked in the river, and then we finally pulled into Queenstown officially.
Caas considering his options and some great merchandise
Since it was just about dinner time, we decided to go as a group and sample one of the famous eating places of Queenstown - Ferg Burger. It’s a one-of-a-kind burger joint that’s super popular with the locals and has a lot of interesting burger options. You could get a standard burger or something like crisp pork belly and lamb, or Holier Than Thou, the vegetarian option. All of the burgers had pretty awesome names like Bambi for the venison burger, so there were a lot of fun varieties. The line for it was just crazy and wrapped around the outside patio, but we finally got in and ordered all of our stuff. I got the standard Ferg Burger with swiss cheese, but some of the guys ordered absolutely monstrous things that didn’t even look feasible to eat. Once everyone had their orders, we walked two minutes down the street to the waterfront and sat on the beach of the lake, eating our burgers. It was kind of our last hurrah since Caas was leaving north to Mount Cook the next morning with a different bus and a lot of us were staying for a different amount of days in Queenstown. Most people were staying for at least a few days, but it varied between everyone, so we didn’t know if we’d get a chance to hang out as a group again. We made the most of it and sat by the water, watching the sunset and having a few beers. Eventually, though, it got so cold that we had to move elsewhere. It looked like they were going to hit the bars and stay out late that night, so I decided to bow out before all of that got started. I didn’t want to sleep through my stay in Queenstown, so I called it an early night and went back to the hostel. We stayed at Nomads - a chain kind of like Base or YHA that is popular with Stray because they’re usually huge - and that was alright. I was able to get in the same room as a lot of my closest friends on the bus, so that was nice.
Pulling into Queenstown at twilight
So after two days of traveling towards it, we were finally in Queenstown, and I was looking forward to exploring it the next day. That will be my next post. Look forward to Part I of my trip to Queenstown next time, guys! I promise you it’ll be worth it! See ya!
Reflection Lake. Definitely worth the walk.
After that, it was just hour after hour of trees, beach, cliff, road, sheep, etc. for half the day. To make it a little more interesting and keep us awake, Caas proposed a dare game for the bus to participate in. Basically, people could pose challenges or pranks, and anyone who took them up on them would receive a set number of points, depending on how gutsy it was. We all put in two dollars for it, and the top three winners received somewhere between $10 and $30 dollars in cash to go towards accommodation or booze, whichever was deemed more important. I abstained from competing because it was more fun to watch than participate, and some of them got increasingly ridiculous throughout the day.
The first challenge was to moon a car for twenty points, which was a bit juvenile and uninspired, but several boys enthusiastically answered the call for that dare. At the next bathroom stop, Caas dared someone to climb on top of the bus and do the haka, which Robertgoddammit did without hesitation. I should explain about Robert. He’s a middle-aged American guy that was on our bus, originally from New York but now living in San Francisco, and next to all of the British boys, he was a definite “man’s man.” Very tough and just a touch crazy. Basically, when people were first starting to learn everyone else’s name, some unfortunate soul said, “Oh, what’s your name? Robert? Can I call you Rob?” to which he replied, “No, my name is Robert, Goddammit” with a face that could crush stone. Ever since then, he’s been Robertgoddammit, which is oddly fitting for him. Natalie thinks it goes well with his brash, let’s-go-do-it-by-God American attitude, so it’s sort of stuck and is really funny when said casually. “Let’s see, who are we missing? Nick’s still getting ready and Lindsay’s in the bathroom. So that just leaves Alec, Nathan, Robertgoddamit, and Tracey. Okay, that’s cool.” He’s a pretty interesting guy and just another colorful character for the bus.
Anyways, while he was doing a full-on haka like he’d been born for it, three guys stripped down to their birthday suits and went skinny dipping in the river for another fifty points. The joke was on them, though, when the crazy Jewish girl stole their clothes and ran away with them. Plus the water was super cold and infested with sand flies. Poor guys. Another challenge was to guess how many one-way bridges there were between Franz Josef and Makaroa. From the way Caas was hinting about that particular game, we all got the idea that there must be quite a few, and we were right. That area was just packed with them, sometimes three in the space of a mile, but you didn’t notice them much because of the lack of traffic. We had to guess somewhere between 1 and 100, and I put down 28. Guess what the winning number was. 27. How awesome am I? So I was declared the winner by default because no one guessed 27, but I didn’t actually get anything for it. Just pride and honor.
Our scenery out the right side of the bus
Right, where was I? Oh yeah, the boring bus ride. The next break was on the side of the road about halfway through the trip. There was a forest path leading out towards the water, and Caas told us that a pretty awesome waterfall was on the other side. Not one to doubt good advice, I joined the rest of the group in trekking down there. We had been skirting the river all morning, and I had had glances of rapids and waterfalls from between the trees. That whole area us just one big reservoir spilling over, so there are tons of cool sights to see on the side of the road. This one was supposed to be pretty spectacular, though. As we were on the way, the Jewish lady (God, why can’t I remember her name?) posed another challenge to Caas - climb up into a tree like a monkey and make faces. He was only too happy to oblige her on that, so I now have several photos of him doing exactly that. Everyone else seemed content to just chill out in the area around the waterfall and skip stones off the water. Like everything in New Zealand, I’m always amazed by the vibrancy of the colors and the utter awesomeness of the scenery. This particular stop was another case in point.
Caas up in a tree and boys skipping rocks
Also throughout the day, most of the group was slowly eaten alive by sandflies. They’re particularly nasty pests that tend to lurk near water on the West Coast, and once you’re bitten, they swell up and itch like crazy. Then they get sore and can even leave a scar. Poor Natalie got bitten on her ankle and wasn’t really able to enjoy Queenstown because it got infected. She had to go see a doctor and everything because it was all red and inflamed. The entire inside of the bus was an expression of modern art entitled “Death to Sandfly” with their remains smeared all over the windows. For some weird reason, though, I have not been bitten once in my entire time here in New Zealand. I don’t know what it is, but they just don’t go after me, even though I don’t wear bug spray or anything. It might have to do with the fact that I don’t wear shorts or flip flops, but who knows? Maybe they should take a sample of my blood and make it into a serum or something because they obviously don’t go for it.
The rest of the drive was pretty much like that: drive, stop, take pictures, do a dare, rinse, and repeat. Alec answered one challenge for dancing up and down the aisle of the bus to a Beyonce song, and we continued to see some nice scenery out the sandfly-streaked windows. Not long before Makaroa, the gang stopped for one last chance to jump in a river, but about half of us stayed on the bus. It was getting cold and had started to drizzle by that point, so we were just content to sit and wait for them to make their point and come back. I guess there’s not a whole lot to do at Makaroa except rafting and singing karaoke. Due to the weather and the late hour, no one really wanted to go rafting, and we were too tired from the long drive to do any karaoke. I’ve heard some people mention something about hugging a tree in Makaroa, but I’ll never really know what that was about since we all just spent the evening inside, watching the rain. It’s a shame that we got there so late in the day, too, because the cabins that they gave us were pretty cool - kind of like miniature chalets with sloping roofs and cozy interiors. We had a choice of four different meals for $10 - fish and chips, bangers and mash, burger and fries, or vegetarian pasta. I went with the bangers and mash, and apparently that was the only one worth eating. Everyone else complained about their frozen or poor-tasting food while I got to enjoy venison sausages and mashed potatoes. After that, we all made out ways back to our cabins and went to bed.
Our cabins in Makaroa
The next morning arrived with much better weather. The rain had eased off overnight, so we were able to enjoy a clear sky on our way out to Wanaka. Just as we were pulling out of Makaroa, however, I turned back and got a few nice shots of some low-lying fog floating over the campground. There are some perks to waking up early every once in a while. The rest of that day was devoted to getting to Queenstown, so it was another big driving day. Our first big stop was in Wanaka, sort of a Diet Queenstown with a similar appeal but with about 75% of its adrenaline. As we got closer, we got some impressive views of Lake Wanaka and some other surrounding lakes. We stopped at two separate lookout points just because the views were so pretty. For my LOTR fans out there, the hills around Wanaka were used for the Ring Goes South scene with a lot of those panoramic shots after leaving Rivendell. You can probably see the similarity in the photos.
Lake Wanaka and the surrounding lakes
We finally pulled into Wanaka around 11am or so, and Caas told us that we could hang out there for over an hour since there was no set time limit for the day. I don’t really understand the reasoning of Stray sometimes, because as cool as Makaroa was for staying the night, it would have made a lot more sense to just drive another two or three hours and stay in Wanaka for the night. There’s a lot more to do there, for one thing, and the town is just gorgeous. It’s actually listed as one of the major stops of the South Island in most NZ guide books, and yet we didn’t even get to stop there long enough to properly see it all. Shame. Maybe I’ll try to go back there sometime before I leave the country.
Coming into Wanaka
So while Caas was off getting fuel in the bus, we all toured around the town and took pictures. I partnered up with Mirva again because she was going to be leaving soon, and I wanted to hang with her a bit before we parted ways. She had dropped her camera into a glacial pool on Franz Josef two days before, so she desperately needed a new one. Apparently it was the second camera that had broken on her in the last couple months, so she’s either got really bad luck or is really clumsy. I tagged along with her to the tech shop, but when it was clear that the saleswoman was just going to chat with her for a while, I went off on my own to look in some souvenir shops and get some cash out of the ATM. I also stopped at the iSite to get a map of town for exploring. By the time I made it back to the shop, Mirva had decided on one particular camera that was around $250 or $300, which was one of the cheaper ones available. Poor girl. She had to leave it at the store to charge the battery, so while that was going on, we decided to stop in a café for lunch. I had this amazing vegetarian melt with roasted eggplant on foccacia bread and a nice chai latte. By that point, we had about half of our time left to sight-see.
My amazing lunch stop
Luckily, Wanaka is not only a pretty place to look at, but it’s also very small as well. We were able to see the majority of the main streets in the space of half an hour or so, so that worked out for us. All in all, it seemed like a very pleasant day with families out having picnics on the beach, dogs running in the surf, and little kids playing in the park. I especially liked the area just at the water’s edge that had a giant willow tree trailing out into the lake and little diving spots marked by platforms. One couple was even driving this kind of strange aquatic tractor on the surface of the lake. We then moved further into town and found a nice park with the creek running into the lake and a playground packed with kids. Again, I wish we could have stayed longer, but I think we managed to see a great deal of Wanaka anyways. Before we knew it, it was time to get back into the bus - ours was named “Richard,” by the way - and drive onwards. We picked up a few people on the outskirts of town who had gone to a place called Puzzle World, a sort of amusement park of mazes and riddles, and then we grabbed the skydivers who had done that instead. And yes, Alec was among them. Poor guy looked like he was lucky to be alive.
Even more Wanaka
We continued down the road a bit longer, until Caas pointed out a specific activity not endorsed by Stray. Basically, if anyone got hurt, he had nothing to do with it. Since the prank war was still in full swing, he dared anyone brave enough to jump off this overpass bridge into the river below. I think this was just outside of Cromwell, and it was starting to cloud over a bit. I would have considered it, perhaps, if the water hadn’t been freezing and my swimsuit locked underneath the bus in my duffel, but I didn’t really have any desire to jump. I will go skydiving and bungy jumping because, despite what people seem to think, they’re both really safe statistically, but jumping from a high place into water where you can’t see how deep it is seems kind of…dumb. But Caas seemed like he’d done it before to know that it was deep enough, so he got a few idiots to volunteer. One or two quickly became five, and before we knew it, ten crazy people were lined up to jump off. I have no idea where they kept their suits to have them out so quickly…or how they changed. So they all jumped off one at a time, and then they all spaced themselves across the bridge for the finale, all of them jumping at the same time. I have video of it, and surprise, surprise, it was freezing cold. I think that was one dare that actually backfired for most of them, but the rest of us found it hilarious.
Idiots
One last stop before Queenstown was a cute little fruit stand selling all sorts of things grown in the area. Out of curiosity, I tried a “plumot” - apparently a plum crossed with an apricot - and some kiwi fruit chocolate. The plumot was nice - tasted sort of like an apricot with a plum’s texture - and the chocolate…tasted pretty much like chocolate with the faintest aftertaste of kiwi fruit. I wasn’t going to complain because I was craving chocolate at the moment, but people might want to consider that before paying extra for something that doesn’t really taste that different.
A plumot
Then we got stuck in a little bit of road construction just outside of Queenstown. To make it worth our while, two more challenges were issued. The first was to run outside shirtless (for guys, presumably), jump over the fence next to the road, and crawl around on all fours mooing like a cow. Nathan, Daniel, Nick, and Edwin answered that particular call and didn’t even hesitate about it. In plain sight of all the other stopped cars, they ran out like crazy people and started pawing around in the grass. I felt bad for them, but that didn’t stop me from taking several pictures. The other challenge was completed by Nathan alone: kiss a road worker. Luckily for him, there happened to be an attractive lady road worker on this particular site, so he didn’t have to sidle up to a brawny construction worker kind of guy. We got watch him sneak down and get down on his knees to beg for a kiss on the cheek, so that was pretty amusing.
More idiots
Right after that, the road work let up and we were able to continue on to our final stop - the site of the original AJ Hackett bungy jump over the Kawarau Bridge, the first bungy in the world. Some crazy kiwis jumped off of it in the ’80s after seeing some equally crazy tribesmen do it with jungle vines in Indonesia, and after that, bungy jumping was born. So the top three bungy jumps to do in Queenstown are the Kawarau Bridge, the Ledge (a freestyle jump where you can do flips or whatever in a harness), and the Nevis (one of the top five highest jumps in the world). The deal was that if at least ten of us from Stray signed up for one of the three during our stay in Queenstown, we would each get $20 off the already-discounted price, thanks to our Stray passes. Since our bus was awesome and included a bunch of insane people, I think we surpassed that count by at least four or five people. In any case, we all crowded into the building to watch the introductory DVD about the options and history and then went out to the viewing platform to watch people jump off. The Ledge is right over Queenstown, up by the gondolas, and the Nevis is way out of town in a secluded mountain valley that only jumpers go to, so the bridge is the best one to actually watch.
The bridge
If anyone felt particularly pumped that afternoon, we had the option of doing it right there, but I was pretty tired from the drive and wanted to save my bungy experience for a later date. What I ended up doing was booking myself onto the Nevis for March 17th. That’s right, Saint Patrick’s Day. Epic. So since it was the 15th when we arrived - also cool as the Ides of March - I had some time to psych myself up for it. We watched as a couple of German girls threw themselves off the bridge, and then Caas convinced the operators to let him do it for free. Sometimes being a Stray bus driver has perks, apparently. So we stayed there for a good hour or so, watching our fellow Straymates get dunked in the river, and then we finally pulled into Queenstown officially.
Caas considering his options and some great merchandise
Since it was just about dinner time, we decided to go as a group and sample one of the famous eating places of Queenstown - Ferg Burger. It’s a one-of-a-kind burger joint that’s super popular with the locals and has a lot of interesting burger options. You could get a standard burger or something like crisp pork belly and lamb, or Holier Than Thou, the vegetarian option. All of the burgers had pretty awesome names like Bambi for the venison burger, so there were a lot of fun varieties. The line for it was just crazy and wrapped around the outside patio, but we finally got in and ordered all of our stuff. I got the standard Ferg Burger with swiss cheese, but some of the guys ordered absolutely monstrous things that didn’t even look feasible to eat. Once everyone had their orders, we walked two minutes down the street to the waterfront and sat on the beach of the lake, eating our burgers. It was kind of our last hurrah since Caas was leaving north to Mount Cook the next morning with a different bus and a lot of us were staying for a different amount of days in Queenstown. Most people were staying for at least a few days, but it varied between everyone, so we didn’t know if we’d get a chance to hang out as a group again. We made the most of it and sat by the water, watching the sunset and having a few beers. Eventually, though, it got so cold that we had to move elsewhere. It looked like they were going to hit the bars and stay out late that night, so I decided to bow out before all of that got started. I didn’t want to sleep through my stay in Queenstown, so I called it an early night and went back to the hostel. We stayed at Nomads - a chain kind of like Base or YHA that is popular with Stray because they’re usually huge - and that was alright. I was able to get in the same room as a lot of my closest friends on the bus, so that was nice.
Pulling into Queenstown at twilight
So after two days of traveling towards it, we were finally in Queenstown, and I was looking forward to exploring it the next day. That will be my next post. Look forward to Part I of my trip to Queenstown next time, guys! I promise you it’ll be worth it! See ya!