16.-19.04.2018 QUEENSTOWN

After arriving in Queenstown, I still had 3 hours to kill before I could meet my next couchsurfing host, so I was walking through the city with my bags, taking in the atmosphere (which I didn’t really like, it’s a very touristy and a bit pretentious place imo). The scenery, however, is absolutely stunning, I was amazed. I also booked a bungy jump for the next day in the morning, since I was told if I want to do it (and I 100% did), I have to do it in Queenstown.

I then met a Slovenian guy on the beach and talked to him for a while, before meeting Tom, my host. We grabbed something to eat and then went to his place, which I then found out he was sharing/renting from a Japanese guy who has his family with him at the moment, including two adorable, but loud, little children. Tom is a bit obsessed with cacti and has quite a few of them in the garden shed. We didn’t do much in the evening except watch Coco and Django, good movies but that wasn’t really how I imagined my time here.

Anyway, he got up early in the morning since he had to get to work, first thing I did in town was drop my stuff at the hostel I was going to stay at the next night. Afterwards, I had the option of taking a way too expensive gondola up to the bungey spot, or to walk up there (only 45min or so). In parts it was quite steep, through the forest, a few crossings with mountain bike tracks and with tree felling going on all around.

Arriving at the top, I had a coffee and then went to do my jump in front of an amazing scenery.

On the way back down, I met an older gentleman from America, we talked for quite a while and then he gave me his real estate agent business card :’D Later that day, after checking in at the hostel and talking to the German girls in my room, I met up with a Argentinian guy who had some difficulties with English, but we still had a good time.

In the evening, I decided to join the pub crawl that the German girls were going to, organised by a travel company. At every bar, we got free sugary shots that tasted like there was almost no alcohol in them (probably wasn’t anyway) and I had a great time talking to the guys who were organising it and a really nice girl that knew them well, Antonia. I won an ice-cube passing competition with an Asian girl, the prize was a two-for-one attraction/adventure in Queenstown. I couldn’t do it anyway since I was leaving the next day, but the girl was absolutely thrilled to get it.

After a while I decided to leave the pub crawl to meet up with some other travellers I knew over couchsurfing, we had a great storytelling session and a few beers, then made our way to another bar/club. Outside, I met an English guy who wasn’t happy with going clubbing at all, it was quite funny to be honest. Later, we went to the club everybody in Queenstown ends up while going out: called worldbar. There, I met the people from the pub crawl again and got free drinks because the people that were working for the travel agency seemed to like me.

When I checked out the next day, I couldn’t find my runners anywhere. I also didn’t hear back from the hostel asking if they had seen them, so I suspect they might have been taken while I was gone… Meh. From there, I went back to Wanaka (it was on the way) and then met two Irish guys, Adam and Seamus, who took me with them to a campsite near Hawea and were kind enough to let me sleep in their 3-person-tent, since at that time, I only had a sleeping bag and a mat.