QUEENSTOWN, NEW ZEALAND!

[Written Last Night]
I think everyone that I know (and can tolerate) should move to Queenstown. I’ve only been here about 4hours but I already love it. I’m going to go bungy jumping and then do some sort of water thing- either river surfing or canyoning. There’s a guy from Edmonton staying in our hostel room who said canyoning was really cool. We had a beautiful and successful day today, much better than yesterday. Yesterday started off with a super early and pricey jaunt to the airport in Brisbane and a crying baby in our row and the bogan family in the row ahead of us. But we finally made it to Christchurch and through customs and had a little wait for our shuttle but it was reasonably priced. Our hostel was the Jailhouse Accommodation, it was in a converted historic jail (used as late as 1999!), and I thought it was really cool! Unfortunately, their internet was down when we arrived and we needed to still book our bus to Queenstown for the following morning. The woman at reception told us they would hopefully be back online later in the evening. So we headed into town (about a 15min walk) and took in some sights and had a mediocre Indian meal. We went to tourist information to get a bus schedule and went to the bus line depot but they were closed by the time we arrived. We needed the internet like never before and were unpleased to learn that they were still offline at the hostel. It was before 9pm so we called the 0800# to make the bookings (the call center was supposed to be open until 9pm) but after hearing the initial recording and then a dial tone 4 times we gave up on that. We could walk back to town but it was dark by then and who knows what would be open past 9pm, everything else pretty much shut at 5pm! Despite the time change in our favor we’d had a long day and were tired. We decided to try to get a good night’s sleep and then get up super early again and try to sort it all out at the bus depot.
This morning we got up before 6am for the second time in a row. We got to the bus depot just as it opened with all our shit. We were able to purchase the special pass we’d been looking at and book the first leg of our journey- for this morning! By that time it was about 6:45 and our bus left at 8:30. Now all we had to do was find internet to book a hostel for Queenstown and get some breaky. After discovering no one was open except Starbucks and they wanted $10/hr for wireless I just sat down with my laptop in the middle of Cathedral Square and tried to pick up an unsecure signal. Success again! Except after Kate got on it , I lost it. Oh well, we were about to submit a request to a hostel and hoped it would be good enough to secure a room for the evening. We went back to the bus depot, hoped on the bus at 8:30, and then settled in for the 8hour trip.
Now let me tell you something, New Zealand has a big beauty for such a small country. That’s the only way that I can think of that represents what I saw today properly. Big rolling hills, big farm lands, big mountains, big rivers. Big and beautiful and just stunning. I’m sure the pictures won’t even begin to get across how gorgeous this country is, I pretty much stopped taking drive by pics towards the end. That and I’d had such an off sleep the night before I could barely keep my eyes open.
We stopped for about 30mins at Lake Tekapo for lunch and it was amazing of course too. The lake is glacier fed and the most striking turquoise-blue imaginable.
Upon our arrival in Queenstown we headed to the hostel we’d emailed earlier only to find out that they had no vacancy. We’d acquired quite a stack of brochures by this time and started going through them to see who had a room for us for the night. No luck with the first two places, uh-oh. Kate called this place called Base that we’d checked out online earlier and said it was only available for tonight and not the total 3 nights we are staying in Queenstown. When she called they told her they did have a vacancy for all three nights and that the price was entirely different, in a good way, than what online had told us. So another bit of luck had come our way. We checked in, found our room, showered, met one of our 8-share dorm mates (Thomas from Edmonton) and he recommended eating at this place across the street called Furgburger. We did and it was so good. Then we spent a little bit wandering around town.
It is now a little after 9pm and I want to go to sleep. In the morning we will go to find free wireless and book some more buses and maybe a train and a bungy and some sort of water adventure!