We’ve left Tekapo and Mackenzie Country behind and our noble (bu)steed took us further to the central Otago, a region full of vineyards and fruit orchards, but also beautiful lakes and mountains. Our first destination here was Queenstown – the adrenaline capital of New Zealand lying at the lake Wakatipu below the Remarkables mountain range. From here, we made a turn-off to Southland and visited the famous Fiordland National Park. After this misty and rainy trip we returned back and went to see Wanaka, Queensland’s smaller sister. The weather was slowly becoming colder and less sunny, but in addition to lower temperatures and rainy days, the advancing autumn time also brought some glorious colors to the country. We would love to show you these days in the following paragraphs and pictures.
- Queenstown – Interlaken of New Zealand
- Our rainy trip to Milford Sound & Fiordland National Park
- Gorgeous autumn in Wanaka
- How to get around
- Where did we stay
Queenstown – Interlaken of New Zealand
Queenstown is the world’s capital of adrenaline sports and the birthplace of bungee jumping. Apart from that, you can try bungee swings, skydiving, jet boating and tens of other activities here. Sounds exciting? Well, maybe if you have the (metaphorical) balls (we don’t). It’s also a popular destination for skiing in the Remarkables (unfortunately, April was a bit unremarkable in this regard), hiking, biking as well as indulging in what the wine industry has to offer.
It really reminded us of the popular city of Interlaken in Switzerland, the Swiss home-place of paragliding and outdoor activities in any season. But Queensland seemed way more commercial. Maybe because it was so full and overpriced due to the national holiday? Nevertheless, the lake Wakatipu and the nature surrounding the city is beautiful and the attractions and activities plentiful, hence everybody can pick whatever suits them and will surely have a great time. These were our picks:
Going up to Skyline
The views of the city, the Southern Alps and the lake Wakatipu are supposed to be the best from the Skyline, a small hill above the city which you can walk or take a gondola; the latter being quite an attraction for both the lazy tourists and downhill bikers, so you’ll have to queue just like we did (because we were lazy, of course). The views from the top are indeed stunning! In addition to the scenery you can also observe and listen to the screams of bungee jumpers. Or try it yourself if you are less chicken than us. Or go for a luge ride. Or just walk around and have a coffee. 9/10 on a “touristy” scale though.
Tasting local wine
The Queenstown area, as a part of the Central Otago Wine Region, has many nice wineries with their signature Pinot Noir and other local stuff. We love wine tasting! Actually, we like the pretentiousness and lofty words accompanying it more than the wine itself.
“Does this taste like a wet river stone to you?”
“Sure. And a tinge of chocolate frosted donuts with sprinkles covered in petroleum and set on fire for 24 second at the end as well?”
And we felt like going for one here. Thus, we took a public bus going to Arrowtown and jumped off at Amisfield Winery. After a short walk we entered into a very attractively looking cellar door. Firstly we tried and bought some wine at Amisfield and afterwards we also tried Bald Hills Winery. And we’ve learned that the local Pinot costs more, since it somehow requires more work? Funny how that’s never the case here in Europe. That day we’ve learned something new.
Exploring the city by foot
We like walking through new cities, towns and villages and exploring them by foot, talking to random locals about random small things and asking them for tips and tricks that would allow us to stray from the touristy routes and places. We’d been to a weird swaying bar on a boat (am I drunk or is it just the boat?), a value restaurant with a nice day menu where the locals eat. We also heard that there is a place where you can find the best burger on the planet. Possible, but when we saw the queue, we agreed we don’t even feel like eating burgers in our recent healthy carrot-apple-hummus-nuts based diet.
Our rainy trip to Milford Sound & Fiordland National Park
Milford Sound and Fiordland National Park is probably on all the must-see guides for the South Island. And there is a valid reason for it as it’s pretty unique! Originally, we wanted to be adventurous and cool and take one of the famous multi-day tracks here – the Kepler track. However, due to advanced autumn weather as well as our inability to plan such things early enough (i.e. limited camping sports in the national park so you should really plan your stay some time ahead – don’t be like us), we opted for a very long day trip from Queenstown and a cruise in Milford Sound. In the end we were happy we didn’t have to walk in the rain and be wet for several days. Is this a reason we haven’t trekked Scottish highlands so far? Maybe.
Journey through the National Park
Fiordland National Park is situated in the Southland region, the southwest of the South Island. A gateway to the park is the town Te Anau. With a lake, of course. You wouldn’t want a town without a lake, would you? We went through this region and its breathtaking sceneries with misty mountains, waterfalls, rainforests and reflecting Mirror Lakes as part of our trip to Milford Sound, probably its most famous fiord. On the day of the trip, we were treated to the worst weather of our kiwi trip so far. On the other hand, we were able to spot plenty of waterfalls flowing from the surrounding mountains; our bus driver mentioned several times we were lucky the weather was what it was, otherwise we wouldn’t have it this dramatic.
Milford Sound cruise
Here it is, the famous Milford Sound! Despite its name, it’s actually a fiord, not a sound, but sound sounds better, right? One of the options to get personal with this majestic fiord is a cruise. If you don’t mind spending money, you can also book a fancy scenic flight. Likewise, if you don’t mind hiking in the rain, you can do that, too. We minded both of them. But we still got wet, since our captain wanted to show us just how powerful the waterfalls are. Now, while Pepe can easily imagine how wet a person standing underneath a mighty waterfall may get and thus stayed safely inside the cabin, Mia doesn’t have this sort of imagination and got soaked. That’s life.
Gorgeous autumn in Wanaka
Autumn looks glorious in Wanaka! This small town, just 1.5 hour from Queenstown, seemed sleepy compared to its bigger sister, however, the landscapes are comparably great – if not better. Similar to Tekapo or Queenstown, Wanaka also has its own lake, the fourth largest in the country. You already know what we think about lake-less towns, right?
Wanaka is the gate to the Mount Aspiring National Park and thus a paradise for skiers and all outdoor enthusiasts. And wine lovers, of course.
Probably one of the most popular activities here is hiking to the Royce Peak to get the breathtaking view of the lake and the national park. This is what we wanted to do as well, but the weather had changed our plans. So what can you do if it’s too rainy for hiking and too warm for skiing? Here is what we did.
Exploring the lakeside with more or less famous trees
Like other lakes we saw in the South Island in the past days, the lake Wanaka is very pretty and we assume it must be great to swim here in the summer and look at all these majestic mountains around. However, as we visited in late April there was no swimming or lakeside picnicking. Our windy walk was very refreshing and satisfying as well. We even spotted a newly married couple during their photo-shoot and felt sorry for the bride in her armless dress (while snuggly wrapped in our merino base with 2 more layers on).
Unlike the other lakes we saw before, the lake Wanaka has one specialty – the Famous Wanaka Tree. We couldn’t believe it at first, but go ahead and try to search for #ThatWanakaTree on Instagram and you’ll see just how famous it is. This also explained why a medium sized crowd was trying to take a selfie with it. We’d applaud them more if they tried the cliche pose #27 “Me standing on a tree” in this weather (don’t do that though!). But the peer pressure hit us hard and we took some photos as well, since it’s not often you meet a real flora celebrity.
Wandering through colorful streets and parks
In our small private competition of cities looking graceful in autumn colors, this place was the winner. Look at some pictures from our walk through the town trying to get a glimpse of how the locals live and where they spent their free time.
Tasting some local wine or liqueur again
Wanaka belongs to the Central Otago Wine Region famous mainly for their Pinot Noir wines. We’d tried some in Queenstown several days ago and wanted to add some more samples to enrich our sommelier collection (bellies?). But nah, we aren’t mature enough for these Pinots and still prefer something a tad less dry. However, the wineries above Wanaka are very nice and wine tasting in Rippon winery was a pleasant experience.
Since the region has so many fruit orchards, we thought they must surely do something more useful with all the fruits rather than just selling it fresh or cooking them into jams. And well, we were right. There are several local distilleries. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to visit any of them in person but we found this nice small store downtown with a nice shopkeeper willing to explain and let us taste some of their local products. The conversation went something like this:
CK: Hi, it seems you have plenty of fruit orchards around here. Do you make some local slivovitz?
S: Sure, do you want to taste some? Where are you from?
CK: <insert a 5 minute monologue about how we’re from Slovakia and how we, as a country, make alcohol from just about any fruit known to man, how 52% is the right percentage for the homemade moonshine and how to know the good stuff, while he prepared us some samples>
Random Customer who just walked in and saw him handing us samples: Careful, that’s some strong stuff!
S: No worries, they’re from Slovakia, they can handle it.
CK: <bottoms up>
In the end, we went on our merry way with a bottle or two, because even though we were sorely tempted to buy some of the beautiful production of the nearby Cardona distillery, we decided it would be a waste to drink the whole bottle in one evening or a hassle to carry glass bottles with us on the way. Next time!
How to get around
As usual, we jumped on an InterCity bus in Tekapo ready for an almost four hours journey, of course at least as picturesque as we’ve always had so far. After 2.5 hours, we made a quick stop in Cromwell where Mia was so fascinated by the beautifully colored fruit vineyards and orchards all around, that the bus almost left without her. Look!
After another hour, nearly the whole time tracing the blue Kawarau River and Gorge, we arrived in Queenstown. This part of the road was identical also when we went from Queenstown to Wanaka by the same bus company three days later.
As for the trip to Fiordland National Park, there are several options on how to get there from Queenstown by bus. However, the easiest one for us was to book in through InterCity again as a return trip including a cruise in Milford Sound. We booked all those tickets online and paid for them from our prepaid hour credit on flexi pass
Where did we stay
Queenstown: We didn’t learn from our last experience and didn’t book anything in advance. And the holiday was still ongoing. So we ended up staying in a hostel called Bumbles Backpackers for three nights. On one hand, it was very close to the lake, on the other, it was the most expensive accommodation we had during our whole New Zealand trip, and not nearly the best. However, our private room was OK and the receptionist was also very friendly.
Wanaka: We stayed only one night in a hostel called Holly’s Backpackers. This was a great little cozy place, had a family-like atmosphere, nice kitchen and living room with tons of DVDs with various movies (but everybody was watching The Lord of the Rings anyway :). We met some friendly people from all around the world, even an older married couple who traveled a ton throughout the country, but apparently Wanaka was their favorite place and they made time to come to this exact hostel for at least a few days every year. We spent the whole evening sitting behind one table with fellow hostel-dwellers: young girls from Sweden, France and Hong Kong; exchanging stories and sharing bottles of local liquors we’ve bought in the store nearby that day. Such a nice and refreshing night and place!
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