From the far » Queenstown

The Mother Has Landed…

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:40:24 +0000

Will Waiting Professionally For His Mum, Queenstown Airport

We have now picked up Will’s mum in Queenstown (what a beautiful airport to fly into!!) and spent a couple of days fuelling her with NZ coffee, whisking her around the shops and helping her avoid bungy jumps. We went up in the skyline gondola thingy to look over the whole of Queenstown, the gorgeous mountains in the background. Stunningly lovely. And then Will and I kept our inner childs happy with a spot of luging down the hill. Lucy took the photos. I put my helmet on the wrong way round, which the supervisor girl took great pleasure in telling me, and Will took even more pleasure in taking photos and ripping the piss out of me. ‘Special’ does not even cover it.

Lunch in Arrowtown, and then spent a night in Wanaka. Touted as being like Queenstown used to be, it is lovely. Spent the afternoon by the lake sunbathing and reading, and generally doing lots of not very much. We’re very good at that now!!

Special Jo

Yesterday we started working our way towards the West Coast, and stopped in at the apparently legendary Blue Pools (although I’d never heard of them). Ridiculously crystal clear and still waters at the bottom of a waterfall, a scene where Daniel Craig would not look amiss. We all ripped off our clothes and jumped in for a swim. Except it was the absolute coldest water I have ever encountered. As she got in Lucy turned into Aunty Libby for four seconds and swore like a trooper.

Lucy is desperate to see a penguin, so that is now the order of the day. We will see what we can do…

I have now broken my second pair of flip flops. But there’s always a bright side – at least now I get to go shopping!!

Mother & Son Reunited

Queenstown

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:08:13 +0000

Gorgeous sunshine. Beautiful mountains. Luscious lake. All just lovely lovely lovely. But too many nice shops too. Oops. Poor budget.

Burger Treatment

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:29:15 +0000

I am seriously hurting. Achy achy achy after kayakking some obscene distance through the entire Milford Sounds with a rather too kooky young Kiwi who declared everything to be “awesome” and couldn’t get through a whole sentence without throwing in “cool bananas” or “coolness”. I think I am starting to be an old, grumpy person. My shoulders have never ached so much in my life. I think we kayakked some 28km!!! Will really should start to develop arms like Biceps Steve’s some time around now.

Treated my pain with the meanest, finest burger from Fergburger in Queenstown. This is not only the best burger (officially – I say so) in NZ. It is the finest burger in the world. Will and I both had the Tropical Swine. But tomorrow I think I’m going to go back and try The Codfather (battered blue cod with tartare), or maybe The Bun Laden (falafel patties), or actually maybe the Little Lamby… Mmmmmm, tooooo good.

Me & My Burger