Room with a view for sure

As I'd said, I had to find last minute accommodation on Sunday night for the Queenstown area. Of course it wasn't our plan to go back to Queenstown, we only did it because we had to pick up the bloody bag. But hey, we thought we might at least make the best of it. And I charged the accommodation, fuel etc. to SAS of course. :-D So, the Shotover Country Cottage it was, purely by chance because it suddenly popped up in the hotels.com search results. And sometimes the chance encounters prove to be the best. This is one of the nicest places I've ever stayed at, and for a great price as well. Shotover Country village is brandnew, looks like it has been created on the flats from scratch in the past five years or so. It's ca 12km from Queenstown, 6km from the airport and 5km from the Five Miles shopping centre, 15km to Arrowtown. There's also a regular bus running into the city. So pretty much perfect in terms of location. The cottage itself is superbrandnew, everything still shiny and very much perfect - great shower, washing machine, dryer, cutlery, comfy bed, spacious room, super quietly situated at the very end of the village. And with a deck/verandah overlooking the ZQN airfield and the mountain ranges. What a view! What sunsets! JST220 Airbus A330 taking off Monday night, ZQN-MEL ... not too bad!







We had a wonderful time, did some shopping in Queenstown, had very nice waffles and ice-cream, hiked up Sawpit Gully and Big Hill near Arrowtown with magnificient views, more ice-cream. Patagonia Chocolates at the waterfront, not the worst location on the sofa in their "lounge" area. :-)











And then headed back south on Wednesday morning, first to meet friends for lunch at The Rocks in Invercargill, then to catch the ferry to Stewart Island. "The Rocks at Shop5" is a very nice cafe, highly recommended, I had a wild mushroom and apple cider risotto for lunch, followed by a fruit crumble. Delicious! Otherwise, Invercargill is as just as bleak as it always used to be. We drove out to Oreti Beach, parked our car right on the sand and walked for an hour along this fantastic stretch of sand. 10km of perfect sandy beach, dunes to one side, ocean to the other, not a soul in sight. On the way back, stopped at "The Cabbage Tree" tavern for some superdelicious real-fruit ice-cream:



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gandalf the Pedophile

Driving down south to Kerikeri was beautiful: we took the time to take the scenic coastal route, visiting gazillions of beautiful beaches and inlets. Bliss and joy. KK itself is very nice of course as well, real fruit icecream, need I say more. On a rainy Saturday afternoon we went to Ngawha hot springs, which rocks totally. Basic, ramshackle pools, or rather woodclad holes in the ground with different temperatures between very hot and scorching, after one hour you have a baby's skin again. Amazing. We stayed at the very nice and highly recommendable Kerikeri Farmhostel and the reisebegleitung greatly enjoyed the Kunekune pigs they keep. Before Xmas crazyness took over the whole place we left for Whangarei Heads and that's where the old pedowizard comes in. But more of that tomorrow, I have to and eat one of the best breakfasts of all times now. Just remember: always stay with your arse to the wall when meeting old man with grey beards and pointy hats.
Read more

Rain!

But warm. And not real rain. Just a drizzle. It's gonna clear up any minute. ANY MINUTE. I'm sure. Everybody's sure of that. Has been sure for the past three days. The only thing I'm sure of is that it will indeed clean up after we've left tomorrow and that the clouds will follow me to Napier. Because they too love me. I'm a raingod after all. Since I'm so incredibly butch and such a great manly bloke I did not let the rain keep me from exploring the mountain. Didn't go up to the top because that would have been stupid. The forest is truly amazing! Brings out all the hippie genes in me. But only for a millisecond. Gotta finish up now, have to clean my rifle and go rabbit and possum hunting. Kill a couple of God's creatures, just for fun.
Read more

Hawai'i, a résumé

Well, well, well. Looking back with a couple of days distance I must say that Hawai'i was underwhelming. It was nice, no doubt about that, bur I certainly won't be going there again and I think there are better places with less hassle and rules and regulations in the world. But anyway, let's try to wrap it up in a post. Flying into Hilo is niiiiice. On a clear day. You get beautiful views of valleys, forests, waterfalls, kinda like a very short scenic flight (provided you have a window seat on the right side of the plane). Domestic flights in HI are relatively easy going: our baggage arrived always very quickly and the car rental companies are just across the exit door from baggage claim. I had pre-booked our cars through NKT Travel and everything worked perfect - we got a good price, good, reliable car, no worries at all, so I can definitely recommend them. You don't really need a 4WD (unless you have a very specific use case planned). We rented a "mid-size...
Read more