Queenstown Day 1

I am not sure I have the time or energy to get the full Queenstown experience into blog form at the present moment, but we are in a town called Wanaka right now with no real plans for the late afternoon, so I may as well put some effort in.

Amy and I drove from Christchurch to Queenstown on Monday. The drive took about eight hours, but that includes a lunch stop, numerous picture stops and a winery stop, so we may have been in the car for something like six hours. The drive was very pleasant; the road wound through a number of rolling hills and then mountains and we were blessed with some great sunny skies. Our lunch break was along the shores of a giant, turquoise lake, which sand flies aside, provided us with great visuals as we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Arriving in Queenstown was immediately exciting and we headed straight to our lodging: the Queenstown Lakeside Holiday Park to get settled and get into the night.

Queenstown reminded me a lot of Interlaken, Switzerland, but with a more developed downtown area. The setting was magnificent: about a 6 block by 4 block grid of shops, bars and restaurants, backed by tall mountains and bordering the longest lake in New Zealand. You couldn't really ask for more options than were at our disposal. Our first order of business was getting some food and we had a serviceable meal at a place called Red Rock which allowed us to eat outside and relax after the day of travel. We next wandered the streets, popping our heads into various stores and casinos, before deciding to get a glass of wine what we later determined to be "The Mall". So, we sipped local wine in a crowded pedestrian walkway and enjoyed the surrounding feel of life.

We headed down to the lake and walked around a bit before deciding on having a couple beers at a place called the Loaded Hog. We sampled a couple of the Loaded Hog's beers and watched the passers-by before deciding to head back towards our Holiday Park.

Time to go experience some more of Wanaka. Day 2 of Queenstown and more at some point in the future.