Day 16 - Queenstown (Even More!)

Today was our day to chill out in Queenstown.  After having been on the move for two weeks before today, we decided to hang around the town and check it out.  Our itinerary was quite simple, go up the mountain right next to town and then come down and check out the local pubs and shops.  However before we could get on with our day, we had to make several phone calls to Air New Zealand to make sure that our flight would actually depart the following day.  The entire time we were in New Zealand, the volcanic ash from the recent Chilean volcano eruption was causing havoc with NZ air space.  The Queenstown airport was closed yesterday and this morning with hopes it would open later in the afternoon today.  We crossed our fingers and hoped that tomorrow our flight would actually leave!

We started out around 10AM and walked towards the base of the gondola in town.  On our way we passed a boutique high-end B&B called The Dairy.  Our friends Andrew and Blanca Solis of Houston, TX spent part of their honymoon in this B&B.  It was cool to see where they spent some of their time as newlyweds!

We checked in with the gondola, where we found it would cost a good penny to take the gondola up the mountain.  We said the heck with that!  We can just walk.  So that is what we did.  Spent 1 hour hiking up the mountain.  If I had to guess, I would say we climbed 1500 vertical feet.

We were well rewarded at the top.  The views were amazing!

And too bad we did came up to the top of the mountain first thing in the morning.  The city bungy jump didn't open until noon, so we couldn't do it (now that we are bungy enthusiasts!).  But just checking out this jump was really cool.  In the below picture, the bungy platform is the green glob that sticks out above the trees and above the gondola line.  With the town and lake in the background, it makes for one heck of a view when you are jumping!

Ok, one other thing we saw that was really cool.  Palm trees in a ski town!

We made our way back down the mountain early in the afternoon.  We skipped the walk down and snuck on to the Gondola.  Didn't pay anything, not sure that was kosher.

Anywho, we then completed a minny pub crawl.  Insert shout-out to Josh Taft here.  Apparently, the Kiwi's understand the concept of sunskier.  Check out the below to ad we found on the window of a local pub!

One of the cooler bars we checked out was called Monty's.  I had learned of this place from several UNC MBA students who were in NZ for a semester abroad.  I was a cool little watering hole.

Here is Mindy warming up near the fire in Monty's.  While there, Mindy met this local bricklayer who had the cutest little puppy with him.

For dinner, we grabbed a giant burger at Fergburger.  What a name of a food joint!  This place was awesome - taking a burger joint down to its basics.  Just awesome burgers!