"Round the World" 2010: New Zealand - South Island (part 1)

Days: 30-33
Miles Traveled: 16,012

It's hard to believe I've been on the road for 30 days now (not including the separate 3 week trip to China & Hong Kong in March). Not only is it hard to believe that I've been traveling for that long, but also knowing that I still have 120 more days to go! This is going to sound odd - but I need a break!

After rain and cold on New Zealand's North Island (Auckland and Wellington), I flew into Christchurch which is in the northern part of the South Island. I'll give you one guess as to what the weather was like...and if you get the answer wrong you're either an idiot or you haven't been following my blog! (Some of you may qualify for both...you know who you are...don't look at the person sitting next to you!) Yep, raining and cold. Christchurch was completely uneventful - not much to see, not much to do. The original plan was to fly into Christchurch and immediately get on a train to Greymouth and back then leave for Queenstown the next day. The train trip is a full day trip from the east coast of the south island over (and through) the Southern Alps to the west coast and back again. It's ranked in the top 5 most scenic train trips in the world as ranked by many different travel sites...including the guy in "Seat 61" - apparently some world renowned train guru that I've never heard of until now, but it sounded impressive even though I'm not much of a "passive-sit-on-a-train-and-stare-out-the-window" kinda guy. Unfortunately, after landing in Christchurch and talking to the hotel's concierge about booking my ticket - she said the rail line is undergoing maintenance so the train only goes about a third of the way to Greymouth to the Southern Alps and then you get onto a bus for the rest of the way. She didn't recommend the trip because of this. So - another "plan" out the window. One of the disadvantages of booking 5 months of travel - you can't really be that well prepared for each location until you actually get there and you need to wing it - but with that comes disappointments like this. So far, I'm really bumming about New Zealand especially because this was one of the top countries I wanted to visit out of the 34 I'll hit on this trip.

For those of you that want more pictures - there's nothing spectacular in Christchurch so I'll give you the boring hotel photo (Crowne Plaza). It is in a great location and the cabbie told me it's the nicest hotel in Christchurch. A little better than a Holiday Inn in my opinion.

(I'll make up for the lack of pictures later in the post!)

If you ever come to New Zealand, cross Christchurch off your list - skip it and go straight to Queenstown.

A short side note about how I'm picking the stuff I decide to do when I get to a new location - which will become meaningful in a minute. I've been using Frommer's Guidebooks. They've been absolutely fantastic and 95% of the time their recommendations for hotels/restaurants/bars/tourist attractions/etc. have been spot on. Once in a while I wonder if the author of that particular guidebook is getting some sort of an incentive from a restaurant or bar because it hasn't been as good as the book says it is, but most of the time the recommendations are perfect. I've tried Lonely Planet guidebooks (horrible in my opinion!), and Eyewittness Travel guidebooks (decent but too limited in the information they provide and fill space with too many pictures). For some reason both Lonely Planet and Eyewittness seem to feel the need to cover every possible tourist attraction in a given location regardless if it's a good place for their readers to visit and they provide very little in terms of recommendations with those they do recommend being a hit-or-miss. Frommer's on the other hand, covers their recommended spots in great detail, and then just gives a quick mention to other "attractions" that they don't necessarily recommend or they'll tell you when something is overrated and not worth the cost. They also use a simple three star rating and I've found anything that gets three stars is worth the trip/cost/effort/etc. Most stuff in their books don't even get a star - which I've found usually means it's a waste of time - at least for those places that I decided to go to anyway. One star is recommended if you have extra time or if you are in the area already, two stars means it's highly recommend and three stars are the "must see" places. I've tried to hit just about every three star place in the books and have yet to be disappointed...until now.

Frommer's New Zealand misses the mark...completely! The author of this guide gives 3-star ratings to just about everything under the sun. I feel like the world's 5th largest ball of twine would get three stars...yes, 5th largest! I'm not sure what other brand guidebook for New Zealand would be better, but absolutely stay away from Frommer's in this case. Any other location and Frommer's has proven to be the best (in my opinion). Good example here is that Christchurch got 3-stars. Why? I had no clue until I found out the author lives in Christchurch! I'm seriously considering writing Frommer's to let them know that this particular guidebook hurts their brand - but that may have to wait until I return to the US.

Enough about guidebooks. After a full day in "waste-of-time-Christchurch", I hopped on another plane to Queenstown (the southern part of the South Island). WOW! Let me say that again...WOW! If you have a need for an adrenaline rush, Queenstown is the place to satisfy it. It's the birthplace of the bungee-jump (seriously), the birthplace of jet-boating (a blast!) and probably the birthplace of anything else that can get you killed or seriously maimed! Skydiving, helicopter rides, extreme skiing, parasailing, paragliding, mountain climbing, bear fighting (just kidding...they don't have bears in New Zealand), and anything else that is adventurous is here in Queenstown. And to top it all off, it is the most scenic place I have ever visited in my life! That may change as I continue my trek around the globe, but up to now, Queenstown is in first place!

Finally I get some decent weather. (picture from the plane on my flight in to Queenstown):

It's very cold (remember I'm in the southern hemisphere so it's winter and just a short plane trip to Antarctica (they actually have those!) Cold but the sun is out and there's little wind. Being from Colorado - it's practically golfing weather! (30's-40's fahrenheit as a high for the day)

Here's a quick picture of the hotel (Sofitel) and a view from my room. For those of you that haven't been reading my blog - I'm including these hotel pics to help me remember this trip many years from now. Very swanky hotel, right in the middle of town and at the base of the gondola that goes up to the top of a nearby mountain with a viewing area, restaurant, and a couple of luge tracks...more adventure. By far the best location in town.

The mountains in the background are the Remarkables - which they absolutely live up to their name, they are remarkable! (Video of the view...pretty cool!)

The town of Queenstown is only about 15,000 people and feels very much like a Vail or an Aspen but a little bigger. Great restaurants, bars, cafés, shops, etc. It's located right on a lake and at the base of several mountain ranges.

Here's the sunrise from my deck over The Remarkables (zoomed in)...

Unfortunately, I've only planned on spending one full day in Queenstown (because of that d*&%$d Frommer's guidebook) and I can't possibly fit it all in. I've already extended my time in New Zealand by two days, so the more I extend the less time I'll have in other locations the rest of the trip. Since taking on a bear in a fight to the death isn't really up my alley (even though I probably would have won because of my cat-like reflexes), I decided to take a helicopter tour out to Milford Sound and to try the jet-boating. WOW! Let me say that again...WOW! I know I used that already but it deserves repeating!

First the helicopter tour. At the break of dawn (sun rise is 8:30am at this time of year, so don't think I'm getting up early or anything) we head out to the airport. It's normally a 30 minute helicopter flight from Queenstown to Milford Sound. By bus the trip to Milford Sound is 5 hours - each way, which will become understandable when you see the type of terrain we go over in the videos below. I said "normally" because the boat cruise in Milford Sound portion of this tour had to be cancelled due to weather coming in off the ocean and the pilot's fear that he wouldn't be able to get us back to Queenstown if we stuck around at the Sound for too long. So instead of 30 minutes each way via helicopter and 1 hour on the boat, he gave us 1 hour each way in the helicopter and landed it a couple more times than what is normally included in the tour. We landed once on a mountain near a frozen lake, once on a glacier, once at the Milford Sound, and once on top of the highest mountain near Queenstown with a great view of the city. Since we didn't do the boat cruise it's hard for me to compare that with the extra tour/landings in the helicopter but I think we ended up getting a sweet deal.

The scenery is absolutely stunning.

I've seen pictures of New Zealand before, I've seen all three Lord of the Rings movies that were filmed here, but nothing I've seen in pictures or movies comes even remotely close to the views experienced in-person from a helicopter flying over and around these mountains. "Majestic" is the only word I can come up with to describe these views, but even that seems lacking.