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:



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