The next day Trey took Brian to work where he hung out in the student center studying most of the day for his fundamentals of engineering exam that he will have to take a few weeks after his trip. After work Trey met up with him there and they had a few drinks and played some pool before heading home to meet up with Jocelyn. For dinner we took Brian to our favorite sushi place down the street from our place.
Brian and us at our favorite sushi place
To our surprise Brian has gotten much more adventurous with food. When we first met him he basically only ate chicken parm, pizza and burgers, but at the sushi place he had no problem ordering sashimi (raw fish) and he seemed to enjoy it. After dinner we headed across the street to the casino to test our luck. We tried out the blackjack table first and did pretty well with Trey $90 up and Brian $10 up. Felling lucky Brian tried playing some three card poker and had a little more success winning another $20 before we left. It was getting late and some of us had to work the next day so we gave Brian a set of keys to our place so he could explore the town on his own while we slept.
The next couple days Brian explored the city and went up to the port hills in the gondola. Trey took Thursday off from work and he and Brian drove up to Kaikoura, one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand.
Driving to Kaikoura
Just on the car ride there he commented on how beautiful and relaxing everything was here. Once we got to Kaikoura we had lunch and then started out on a hike. This was the same hike that we took Trey’s parents on when they were here, but this time we planned ahead and checked the tide schedule so that we did not get stuck anywhere. The first part of the hike we saw many seals including one baby one that was playing in a tide pool, you can see the video below.
We then proceeded to hike along the coast seeing a large number of seals and sea birds. During the hike we had to keep a constant lookout because you never knew when there would be a seal sunbathing behind the next rock. It was very surprising how easy it is to not notice a seal laying out on the rocks.
The seals were everywhere
Views from the Kaikoura peninsula
These baby seals tried to follow us back to the car
After the hike we stopped at a fish shop to pick up some lobster, Kaikoura’s specialty, for dinner later that night. When got home Jocelyn had already had dinner cooking. About fifteen minutes later we were sitting down eating a great lobster pasta dish. We were both tired from the hike so we went to bed early knowing that we needed our rest for going out tomorrow night and for going to Queenstown for the weekend.
The next night Brian and Trey went over to Jocelyn’s work around 6pm to have a drink before heading out for the night. Jocelyn’s work had just finished having a cocktail making competition so most people had already had a few drinks making it easier to convince them to come out for the night.
Hanging at Hairy Lemon before going out
From her work we went to Malbas, which is not a bar Jocelyn and I normally hang out at but the bar had been clever and struck a deal with Burgers and Beers, a popular restaurant whose building was damaged in the earthquake, to serve their menu. At the bar we had some burgers and chips and then started to dance the night away. As you can see the dance floor was packed.
Jocelyn ripping up the dance floor
Around midnight Trey drove Jocelyn and some of her friends home and then went back to the bar to hang out with Brian and some of the other Lemon’s a little longer. By 2am it was time to call it a night because we wanted to get an early start tomorrow driving to Queenstown.
Brian and some of the Lemons
Trey woke everyone up early the next morning so that we could all get packed, showered and on the road by 9am. For once we even got on the road a little a head of schedule. The weather was nice and the drive was beautiful. Brian was amazed at the brilliant turquoise color of the glacier feed lake Tekapo and Pukaki.
Us at Lake Pukaki
Roughly 6 hours and 500km later we arrived in Queenstown. Our landlords had been nice enough to let us stay at their place in Queenstown for free so we gladly took them up on it. When we arrived we were surprised how nice of a place it was. We were expecting something nice but by no means were we expecting a three story house that had beautiful views of the lake and mountains. It was really a shame that we were just going to be here for 2 days.
Where we stayed in Queenstown
The Kitchen
The Master Bedroom with views of the lake and the mountains right outside the window
The view of the Remarkables from the house
Close up of the Remarkables
Once we got settled in Trey did not let us relax for long because he wanted to go to the gondola and luge before it started to rain.
View from top of the gondola
We headed out and were at the top of the mountain racing down the luge in no time. It was Brian’s first time on the luge and he was a little hesitant at first and it did not help that the second time he went down he had a luge where the breaks were failing, but by the third run he had the hang of it. The luge was made a little more challenging than when we were here in the summer because there was water from snow melt on some of the turns, which definitely made braking in the turns harder. Just as we were finishing our last run it started to rain so we headed back down the gondola.
Brian on the luge
By this time we were all very hungry so we decided to go straight to dinner at one of the local favorites The Cow. The Cow is a pizza and pasta place that is housed in a small stone building on Cow Lane where the cows were milked way back in the day.
The Cow
We had been recommended by just about everyone that this is the place to for good pizza in Queenstown and we were definitely not let down. The meals started with an oversized loaf of garlic bread which the three of us demolished in a few minutes. Since none of us had lunch we decided to order 3 large pizzas. Trey had the Vegetarian, Brian the Bolognaise, and Jocelyn the Pepperoni pizza. The overall consensus by the meat eaters was that the Bolognaise pizza was the best, but they were all good. Trey was the only one to finish his whole pizza so we had the other two wrapped up so that we could have them later. We then drove back to the place we were staying and we all took a power nap before heading out for the night. That night we went to World Bar, one of the many backpacker bars in Queenstown. To be honest World Bar is a very nasty place the whole place smelling like a mixture of BO and stale vomit but they do play good music which is hard to find in New Zealand. We hung out here for a few hours but the lack of sleep was starting to catch up so we decided to head home around 1:30 am to get some sleep.
The next morning Trey must have been feeling nice because he actually let everyone sleep in. He went out and bought some breakfast supplies and cooked bacon and omelets for everyone. After breakfast we took Brian to the Shotover Jet boat launch since this was one of our favorite things that we did in Queenstown last summer. The river was much higher than when we went making the ride a little choppier but Brian said it was a lot of fun and definitely worth going.
Brian representing on the Shotover
In the early afternoon we went to a wine tasting shop so that we could find a nice bottle of wine to leave for our landlords as a thank you. We ended up tasting a lot of wines and buying a bottle for the landlords and another for ourselves. Brian ended up buying a bottle of New Zealand port which was very delicious. After tasting the wines we headed back to the house and had some of the leftovers from the previous night for a very late lunch. We chilled out at the house for a little bit longer before heading back on the road to drive home. A little ways outside of Queenstown the serpentine belt our car snapped so we drove back to the house in Queenstown and decided to stay another night so that we could get the belt fixed Monday morning before driving home. We were lucky we were staying at someone’s house and not in a hotel making easy to just stay one more night at the last minute.
We wanted to keep with the saying and make lemonade out of lemons so we made sure not to waste this bonus night in Queenstown. We took a cab downtown and had dinner at Wai, which is a nice place right on the waterfront.
The is no shortage of scenic places in Queenstown
Brian had the duck, Jocelyn the beef and Trey the snapper. We were all very happy with our meals and decided to keep the night going by having a few drinks at the Bunker bar a few blocks over. We all very much liked this bar because it is on the roof of a building and there is a place outside where you can have a drink sitting around a warm fire while watching an old James Bond movie project onto the building next door.
Drinks at the Bunker
After a few drinks here Jocelyn headed home and Brian and Trey explored the town a little more. After checking out a few of the bars they ended up back at World Bar because it was the only place that had people and was not playing techno music.
The next morning we got the belt on the car replaced and then we started to drive home. We stopped at the place where Jocelyn did her bungy jump last January and watched some people jump. We tried to tempt Brian into jumping but to no avail so we continued on our journey.
'88 it was a great year - Brian and Trey got matching wristbands
On the way home we stopped at the Gibston Valley winery for a tour of their wine cave as well as a tasting. The wine cave was very cool but the rest of the tour was lacking and the wine was not as good as many of the ones we tasted the day before.
Gibston Winery
The Winecave
There was also a cheese place next door and after trying some of the cheese Brian ended up buying a blue cheese and Gouda. We then back tracked a little to have lunch and taste more wines at The Winehouse Kitchen. The restaurant had a nice outdoor seating area with great views of a nearby waterfall.
The food here was very good and a good way to end the trip. After lunch we headed back on the road for the long drive back to Christchurch. On the drive it was a particularly clear day so when we arrived at Lake Pukaki we were treated to a great view of Mt. Cook. By the time we got home it was already 10pm so we all went to bed.
Mt. Cook
The next day Trey and Jocelyn were back at work and Brian took advantage of the day by sleeping in and catching up on his sleep since he has 3 more weeks of traveling ahead of him. After work Brian cracked open the NZ port he bought in Queenstown and set out the cheese and crackers for a nice after work treat for us. That night we took him to one of our favorite "Kiwi style Mexican
place, Coyote bar for dinner and then out to the Bangalore Polo club for drinks afterwards. After a few drinks Brian went out to some more bars while Trey and Jocelyn went and got some sleep. The next night was Brian’s last in Christchurch so he and Trey went out for one last night out on the town. Being a Wednesday night there was not much going on but they somehow managed to stay out till 4am drinking and playing pool. The next day we drove Brian to the airport and said our final goodbyes. It was a good visit and I think we all had a lot of fun.
We already miss him but it was great to be able to share this amazing place with someone who has been there with us since the first night we met!
