Queenstown Adventures

Hello blog!

I know I’ve let almost a week go by without writing a post about Queenstown, BUT I did write it earlier and accidentally deleted the whole thing while I was trying to edit it ughhhhhhhh. The worst. (i’ve also been deathly ill for most of this week which was a major L).

Anyways….here is me attempting to summarize last weekend in a succinct and interesting way for you guys:

At the beginning of the week (last week) we talked about maybe skiing over the weekend and it felt like overnight, we had booked the hostel, researched rental fees, and decided which mountains to hit. It was all planned quite quickly. The five of us: Me, Amy, Kaelin, Dylan and Jack were going to drive up on Friday afternoon in the Polly Trolley and then ski Saturday and Sunday - drive home Sunday evening.

I was packing in my flat on Friday morning, when a new person was added to the Queenstown group - Alden (aka boy from Connecticut that I sat next to on the plane from Auckland to Dunedin) wanted to join! Now we had a full car and a group of people #stoked to go SKIING IN NEW FREAKING ZEALAND. We played contact, which is a really fun car game, on the entire drive over to Queenstown and it was awesome.

We arrived in Queenstown at 5:30ish and the sun had already set, so we couldn’t see the lake or anything, but the town was hopping. We went to our hostel, Southern Laughter, to check in and I was blown away. I kinda thought that the place was going to be a shit hole because the rate was only $33 a night, but it was absolutely lovely! We all had our own bunk beds in a room together and there was free use of the kitchen, dining room, sitting area, TV, sauna and hot tub. Although the hostel was super nice, the best part about it was that it was right in the middle of town; we walked out of the door and we were in the heart of Queenstown.

Now that we had checked in and put all of our stuff in the rooms, we decided to eat dinner and walk around town. We went to a little burrito place for dinner and I got a veggie burrito and a corona with lemon (side note: this country literally does not have limes. Every time I’ve tried to order a drink with limes, they always give me a lemon instead which is quite strange). After some grub, we were walking around town and stumbled into a rental shop to compare their rates to the mountain rates. Turns out that these guys were wayyyy cheaper to rent from, so we took 20 mins and rented all of our gear for the next day (skis, poles, boots, helmet, gloves). They also told us that the shop next door sold lift tickets. In a matter of 30 mins, we had gotten all of our gear and lift passes for the next day! We would be stress free and ready to ski in the morning!!

The rest of the night was a blast - we hopped from bar to bar and laughed and danced and talked.

Saturday morning we piled into the Polly Trolley, had a McDonalds breakfast, and made the hour and a half drive to Cardrona (the ski resort). We got there and immediately got on a shuttle bus that took us to the base, which is a 20 minute ride up this treacherous mountain road that makes you want to die. Once we got up there, the six of us realized just how small of a mountain it really was. There were three chair lifts total and zero trees in sight - the whole thing was one giant bowl. The views were amazing when you weren’t skiing in a cloud (which happened once every 30 mins). These conditions also greeted us on the second day of skiing at The Remarkables. Overall, we had a good time skiing, but we took it slow, had a large lunch and were off the mountain by 2pm each day. We drank coffee and wine in the lodge and called it good.

After skiing Cardrona on Saturday, we went back to the hostile and showered and went to dinner at this cool gourmet pizza place. We drank wine and decided to have an early night in since we were all exhausted. But first, we made a stop at a liquor store for more wine (lol). Back at the hostile, we all watched a movie together (Wedding Crashers of course), and were in bed by midnight. We woke up late on Sunday and made it on the mountain by 10:30 — whoops. I liked The Remarkables better than Cardrona only because it was less crowded and had better snow, but the conditions were relatively the same.

On Sunday, we were all back in the Polly Trolley by 2:30pm to drive home. But first, we made a stop in town to return our rentals and get a burger at Fergburger - the famous burger place in Queenstown. It was an AMAZING burger, definitely worth the hype (10/10). However, it was around my third bite of the burger that I started to feel terrible. I felt sick, achey, I had the chills, and a headache to top it off. Oh no.

I definitely had a fever during the car drive home and it was absolute h.e.l.l. I couldn’t sleep and I felt just awful. It was a blessing when I finally arrived home at my flat and I went straight to bed!

Overall a fantastic weekend in Queenstown (excluding the hellish drive home). I hope I get back to this awesome place at least two more times before I leave New Zealand, or maybe I just won’t leave? Who knows.

Thanks for reading:)

I’m feeling better by the way!