Let me tell you now before we can’t afford it, Queenstown had to be the coolest city in New Zealand. Forget about any California real estate, we need to get in on this while it’s hot.

We drove there and couldn’t get over the views. The whole way to the city was a road along the coast along the mountain range. Incredible. Our hotel, up the mountain side. Nice. The downtown: perfect, easy to get around. Queenstown is a ski city, one of the main places to go in the winter for snow sports. In the summer, it’s home to boat everything, and a whole lot of bungee jumping and extreme sports. We got in and got a free shuttle downtown to walk around. We went to a second story restaurant in the square and had some pizza. There were more stores than anywhere, we did a little shopping. We walked and walked. There was so much going on and everyone was having a good time.
For sure, this place is going to blow up. There was the most development that we had seen yet. If I were to move to NZ, it would have to be there.

Today started out at a tour of a castle. I like castles. I’m pretty sure it’s the only one in NZ, and it was way too crowded to hear the whole story, only that the guy that built it cheated on his wife, she died, he remarried, and she cheated on him. With his son. Typical of people with castles. The views were spectacular and the whole castle was very nice. There are people that live in it, not sure where, so it was pretty big. The daughter got a ball room as an addition to the house for her 18th birthday. I think I got braces. Hmpf.

After the castle, a tour of a brewery. I bet you think I’ve been on thousands of these already, but it was my first! The brewery had a good little story, besides most of it burning down. Then, they put you in a room. Speights, the beer of the south, has these commercials, that I couldn’t understand a word of. It’s all about being a real southern man. Which means using the thickest accent possible. But, from what I had explained later, they were pretty funny. Most importantly – on to the beer drinking. They let us have whatever we wanted. And, hey, I went with a guy that ‘s not that into beer, so I got doubles. The beer was great, and they even let me pour my own.

Our last tour before we were on our own for the night was of a place called the Ovelston house, which two people built early 1900, the daughter that inherited never changed anything, and then donated it to the country. It was a riot, very lavish and all put together old fashioned like. It was probably very funny due to the preceding brewery tour – that a male couple kept getting yelled at for touching things they weren’t supposed to…

Akaroa was quaint. Quaint, quaint, quaint. I heard enough of all these people saying it was their favorite place. It would rain less in my favorite place.

Back to driving, and we were headed south to Dunedin, a Scottish flavor town (By the way, they say doo-need-in – I would have gone with dune-a-dinn). I heard that not many people that do tours make it to this city, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Man are they dumb. It was incredible. We didn’t get enough information on the history of the city, but it is part of the Otago region and has (I think) the oldest NZ college. The drive was one I stayed awake for of the best yet and the city, well, it was beautiful. Their downtown is shaped like two octagons around each other, full of shops and inns and bars. Everyone seemed so happy. We got in and wandered around a bit to take some pictures. It was late so most everything was shut up for the day already, but it was absolutely beautiful and we had a big day coming up again, so we were happy to relax at the hotel.

Which, was about 30 times bigger than the B&B, and which also only had one ice machine and no tubs for ice, which resulted in me running through three stories. Twice. In my pjs. Carrying ice in a ziploc. Twice. The things I go through so the hubby and I can drink a little wine.

Speaking of which, I bet it sounds to you like we had wine every night. Well, we did. But we had very little, so there is something to be said for that. Tolerance is a good thing. The issue was, what with moving around so much, we were lugging the stuff we had bought around. We had intended to bring it back to the States, until we realized how complicated (read: expensive and time consuming) this was. Plus, there is a website,

winedeli.com

that you can just order stuff from that you can’t get here. When we found that out, well, we had some drinking to do.

If you and I have anything in common, you might agree with me that when it rains, you’d rather call it a day and read a book and have some wine, at the very least stay indoors. If you’re not like me, then it’s perfectly fine to go on a boat cruise of the Akaroa Harbour in the fog and the rain.

I did get to venture out momentarily to see some Hector’s dolphins, apparently one of the smallest types, and a calf and everything. It was as nice as it could be considering, but I was glad when it was over.

Of course, it cleared up after we were done and we were able to spend some time looking in the little art galleries and shops and have a pretty great lunch at a local restaurant that actually served pasta – I think that was a first for me – and headed back to our B&B. They did their Happy Hour again and we talked with all the visitors, who besides us, were all from the UK. It was very interesting to hear about how they were unhappy with things there and wanting to find a new place to live. One coupled had actually just moved to another part of NZ permanently and were telling us about what that was like. You know, in case we were considering it…

As you may have noticed, every other day was the driving day, for the most part, so that’s where we were today, in the car. I might have dozed off a little on the way, but MK woke me up to (dork) show me where the Lord of the Rings ring was made…where some big waves were, and (finally, worth waking up) some fur seals. Fur seals are tiny and are different than other seals because of their little external ears (so cute!) There were a good amount on the rocks on the side of the road. MK climbed down and got right close to one.

We stopped for lunch (yes, probably McDonalds…) at a cute town and got a calling card to call the Mom and Dads. There were some giant vineyards on the way to Christchurch, some great views of the land. We stopped to stretch our legs, and I was blown away. Christchurch is a beautiful city. I wanted to spend more time but we had to get back on the road. MK and I argued for about the rest of the hour ride why he thought the city sucked and I liked it after being there for 10 minutes.

We drove all the way up and back down a mountain into the bay of Akaroa. Akaroa was settled as a French town way back whenever. It was quaint, and the weather was miserable. To our surprise, having only been in hotels, we were set up to stay in a Bed and Breakfast. Different…but includes some free wine so fine by me. They all went out for fancy dinners and we retired to our room for the night.

Turning in a rental car has never been so difficult. They weren’t open, or by the ferry, or anything that would have made sense. We barely got on the InterIslander Ferry in time. It was a four hour trip that I mostly played Nintendo DS during, while MK fought for a view outside. Our new car was some ridiculous sporty Ford.

We got in to Picton around noon. There was a little rain so we stopped for lunch and I had some really great oysters. It was immediately noticeable how much prettier it was on this South Island. The views were amazing, the water was even clearer, the boats parked on the coast were bigger and nicer. We hiked to Split Apple Rock. We made plans for the next day to take a water taxi, the only way to get to some of the coves by where we were.

Longest drive yet: to Wellington. On the way we got to see a windmill power plant thing, that was the coolest, those things are huge. And of course there is no wasted space in NZ so there’s all these little sheeps wandering around under them oblivious…

So, after all the rare hits and mostly misses our diet had been getting, we made the hardest decision of our trip: we had lunch at McDonalds. I swear to you, I never eat that stuff here, but it was the only meal so far that I didn’t feel sick after. So, as you can imagine, we had it like 5 (ok, you got me, maybe 15, we were there a MONTH) more times. Just a little cheeseburger…MK actually had some healthy chicken wrap. The burgers that you’d get in a local shop anywhere, they serve with beetroot on the meat, and goat cheese, which I just can’t stomach. So McDonalds helped a lot. There were a couple Subways we made it to too. That was it for chains, and I feel guilty, but I’d rather eat that garbage and enjoy my trip.

We took a trolley car to the top of the city, and walked down through the Botanical Gardens, which unfortunately turned into a death march we thought we might not survive. 35 minutes turned into an hour and a half or so back to the hotel. Don’t know how we managed that, but I’m pretty sure I walked off my McDonalds calories!

MK also made us stop at the Kaoira Forest on the way, which I mention only because (my little nerd) he bought a book that told him that that was one of the places that the Lord of the Rings was filmed. I think he was expecting a castle or something, we walked out to where “Rivendell” had been and saw: some grass. Not that exciting. I forgot to mention that we walked over swing-bridges on this hike:

Napier was right on the coast, like almost everywhere else. However, when a huge earthquake came in 1930-something, they couldn’t get to any water at all and most of the city’s downtown area got torched. Therefore, it had to be rebuilt. Art Deco was the cheapest style there was, and since the government decided not to assist, that’s how they went.

Why am I telling you all this? I got up this morning and went on the tour of the Art Deco city. We stared at building frescoes. As you can imagine, all that excitement made us need some coffee, so that’s what we did next. They steam your milk for you and call that a “flat white”. We drove off to a few more wineries and had lunch at the Clifton Bay Cafe. On this drive, it was amazing to see all the wild quail and pheasant on the roadside and on our walks. Not sure if you’re allowed to shoot them or not…

It was one of the sunniest days that we’d had yet so we sat on the beach for a little bit. The wine and sun made us head home for a nap before we went back out for dinner and a tour of the city at night, which has all that art deco lit up in bright neon lights.

After yesterday, we were exhausted. We headed down the east coast to Napier. We had the day to do whatever we wanted, and of course, all we passed by was wineries, so that’s what we did all day.

I didn’t think it was very much fun. They serve you wine begrudgingly, and we were even buying some. Whatever. All I had to show for that afternoon was a headache. My wine preferences have always been a) not tasting like dirt, b) not too oaky, and c) good but cheap. They do make unoaked chardonnays in NZ and that’s what I liked the most. But I pretty much only judge wine and a, b, and c and don’t need to really talk about it. That’s all you do at a winery. Oh that and pay $37 for a plate of bread, dip and a bit of cheese.

We found a local pub that was probably the best meal yet, then drove to Bluff’s Point and the Botanical Gardens. I forgot to mention to you that it doesn’t get dark there until about 9:30pm, which really threw us off at first. And continually, as we never remembered to bring a watch or pay attention to the time.