23^rd December 2015

Up at 4am and checked out of the Park Royal and then checked in with Air New Zealand for our flight to Auckland. Went without a hitch. Although their OTP (On Time Performance) was shot – we were 45mins late leaving the terminal – don't know why, but we were late.

Steve and I bought our iPads so we watched a movie inflight – The Beach Boys movie about Brian Wilson.

Coming into Auckland was fantastic – flying over the ocean and to see the long beaches was great. Its very pretty from above with lots of waterways.

Because we were 45mins late leaving, it meant we were late landing,which meant we had a very short time to get our baggage, get through customs and make it to the Domestic Terminal to make our internal flight to Queenstown.

Thank goodness the Customs guy let us go through without being scanned, and then we had to run and I mean RUN to the Domestic Terminal. They checked our baggage in separately for us and then we ran to the gate – PHEW – we made it! Lol

I loved the flight down to Queenstown. We flew right past a big volcano which still had snow on the peak. Was awesome to see! I took a million photos of it with my iPad! Coming into Queenstown is great – you come in through the mountains. We first flew above mountains like Mount Cook which was still covered in snow. Then we got lower and dropped into a valley and followed that to the runway – was fantastic! I can only imagine how spectacular it is during winter and spring when there is plenty of snow around.

The weather was glorious@! Blue Skies with big fluffy cluods. We took a taxi to the hotel and checked in – dropped our bags and admired the view from our room of the river, and then caught the shuttle bus into Queenstown proper.

WOW – this place is GORGEOUS!!! It very much reminded me of a snow town – like Whister or Banff (not quite as pretty as those), but was similar. The river is amazing and the shops and restaurants that line the river are awesome.

We stopped off at Patagonia Chocolates for Ice Cream (Thanks sis for the heads up!) - WOW – I've never had ice cream like it. I had been told my numerous people that NZ Dairy is to die for….and boy are they right! I had 2 scoops in a cup of Caramel Fudge & Banana Blast. OMG – out of this world amazing! Steve went for Vanilla Bean and I made him have the dark chocolate as it had won heaps of awards. It wasn't Steve's cup of tea, but I had some and WOW – it was amazingly smooth and creamy – unlike anything I've ever had before. So definitely a MUST DO when you're net in Queenstown.

We walked the streets and finally decided to eat at Brazz – Steak House. Steve had a fillet Mignon and I had Baby Back Ribs (wow – they were amazing)! We were going to grab hamburgers from Fasbergers – as there was a huge que, so you know its going ot be good...but the wait just to orfer was 30mins and then it was a good 45min wait for the food! As it had already been a long day, we decided against waiting, but we came back to Mrs Fasbergers and grabbed some of their icecream – NOPE – not a bloody patch on Patagonia.

Food at restaurants seem to be on the higher side of what we'd normally see. For pub type establishments, steaks are $40+ and your good old Chicken Parama's are $35+. Not sure if they are keeping up with what we'd have on the Mainland and then with the NZ Dollar being typically $1.10 to the AUS, it can make it similar in price. Supermarket food seems to be on par – somethings cheaper, some things more expensive. Fuel is expensive here. $1.99 for Unleaded. Diesel is $1.09, but then the government tax you something like $6 for every $100, so it makes it work out around $1.50 per litre.

I had been sneezing all day and on the plane – thought it was hay fever, but alas, by 9pm it was turning nasty. So we found a chemist and got some Codral. Hopefully that'll be enough to ward whatever nasty thing is trying to destroy my holiday! Steve thinks I got a chill from the hotel air conditioning, but it might have been from the plane – who knows. I was just happy I got drugs. (Expensive though - $39 for Codral – back home I pay $27) – could just be “tourist town” shop with inflated prices.

We caught the shuttle back to the hotel at 9.30pm and crawled into bed – it had been a long day, but a great one!