Day 1:
We arrived at Queenstown International Airport around early afternoon on our flight from Sydney. In case you don’t already know, New Zealand exercises very strict bio-security at its airports (with huge fines for non-compliance) so we declared every single item that we were bringing in from Australia (packaged food, snacks etc). After clearing immigration and customs we took a cab to our hotel (Hilton Queenstown).
We decided to walk along the trails leading from Hilton towards Kelvin Heights that ran beside Lake Wakatipu.
We came across a mother teaching her daughter how to catch fish.
After walking and exploring the trail for a couple of hours we went back to the hotel for dinner. Since we had to get up at 5 AM the next day, we went to bed early.
Day 2:
We had planned on a Milford Sound Cruise for the day and had booked a Jucy Cruise tour (Coach – Cruise – Coach tour). We took their complimentary cab from our hotel to the Frankton Bus Shelter where the Jucy coach bus picked us up.
Its about a 2 hours ride from Queenstown to Te Anau where we stopped for 30 minutes for refreshments and restroom break.
The scenery starts to get beautiful after Te Anau.
Our first scenic lookout stop for the coach trip was Eglinton Valley. This is a glaciated valley with steep sides and a flat floor. Next stop was Mirror Lakes. The clear water shows the reflection of the Earl Mountains on a calm weather day.
When approaching Milford Sound, I felt glad that I had booked the glass-roofed coach instead of a regular coach for the trip.
We stopped by a place called Monkey Creek where we saw a few mountain parrot birds called Kea’s. These were sitting on tourist’s cars and sometimes ran after the tourists!!
Soon we reached the Homer Tunnel which is considered an engineering marvel.
Soon after Homer Tunnel we reached Milford Sound.
We finally returned to our hotel around 7 PM which made it a 12 hour day trip. We took the hotel water taxi to downtown where we were staying two more nights at the Crowne Plaza Queenstown.
Day 3:
Me and Karen had planned on doing the Queenstown Free Walking Tour while my parents went for the Queenstown Lake Cruise (Million Dollar Cruise).
We spent the next 2 hours with Mark as he went over Queenstown’s history and showed us a different side of Queenstown that we would have missed if we had just ventured on our own.
Just past noon, my parents joined us after their cruise. For lunch we decided to go to Fergburgers and since the lines for that place are legendary during lunch time (45 minutes to an hour), I ordered on the phone and we picked it up. My mom had the falafel burger while everyone else went with the lamb burger.
After lunch, we walked over to the Hertz office and picked up our car. We only had plans to drive to Glenorchy for the rest of the day and the rental agent was nice to assure us that even though we had never been to Queenstown before, there was no need for a gps and it was very easy to get to Glenorchy.
The drive to Glenorchy on the Glenorchy – Queenstown road is considered one of the most scenic drives in New Zealand and I can attest to that. The natural beauty in some places is so amazing it just takes your breath away.
After stopping several times on the way, we finally reached Glenorchy. We parked by the Glenorchy Wharf and walked around by the lake.
After spending a couple of hours by the lake we decided to head back to Queenstown.
After reaching Queenstown, my parents decided to take some rest while we decided to walk around the lake on the opposite side of our hotel.
Day 4:
This was our last day in Queenstown and we decided to walk along Beach Street to Saint Omer Park.
After walking by the lake and enjoying the views for a couple of hours it was now time to head to the airport.
Queenstown was my favorite place to visit during our Australia – New Zealand trip and as it turns out it was the favorite place for Karen as well as my parents too.