Queenstown "Hill"

We spent the morning lounging because we knew we'd be "homeless" until our evening flight. We finally left the hotel around noon and headed down to the smoothie shop to get one final salad wrap and smoothie before leaving town. We became regulars in a week. I love it! 

The strip area we went to was right against their airport and a big thing to locals love to do is watch planes take off and land. Yep, small town. We decided to see what all the fuss was about and it turns out it was pretty cool to see once. I'm not sure I'd make a day of it like some of them do, though. To each their own.

Taking off

Jackson found a hike online that got you on top of the Queenstown Hill. I hear hill, I think a small mound. This was a mountain called a hill, friends. The views were LOVELY, though. 

Lake Wakatipu

Well-worn trail

The views near my top

Yep. Gorgeous.

Me, just taking it all in.

Can you tell that I love the mountains?

I got to an area called the "basket of dreams" and called it enough. My knee just was not feeling the constant climbing. I hate being old when I'm 32. :( Jackson continued on for another big climb and roughly a kilometer of distance to reach the actual top. As you'll see, the views were worth his efforts!

He got a stranger to take his photo :) 

We took a break on the way down to just soak in the beauty of Queenstown for a bit before we left. As you will see below, Jackson was still feeling great and excited about the rest of the hike down and I was in pain and a bit more reserved. I feel like this describes our life quite well most of the time. ;)

Amped and in pain

We stopped at McDonald's on the way out of town to clean up and grab a snack. I decided that it had to be one of the most scenic McDonald's ever. Just check out the view from the parking lot. Not bad!

A plain cheeseburger with a view ;)

All of their McDonald's are automated here so you order and pay at a machine. It is so strange! I kind of like it which I know makes me a bad person. I accept that. From there we filled up the rental car with gas (another $70 fill up for our not-even-empty-yet tiny rental car) and headed for the airport.

The airports are so informal here. You can keep your liquids. You just walk through a metal detector and move on. You don't show a ticket. You do not show i.d. even when checking a bag. It is seriously just not a big deal at all. I kind of love it. (I know it would not work in the U.S. which is really too bad.) Anyway, they also load the planes from the front and the back. We really love it. I'm not sure if it really speeds things up, but it is certainly less of a hassle. The flights are really informal, too. The pilots don't greet you before takeoff so you really have no idea what kind of flight it will be. It turns out the coming out of Queenstown is a real treat. First, you have to take off pretty much straight up because of the mountains. Second, because of the mountains again, the air is always pretty choppy. When I say pretty choppy I mean gripping-your-chair-because-you're-sure-this-plane-is-going-to-crash-into-a-mountainside choppy. I finally had to turn around (we were in the last row of the plane which I felt was a good thing for my odds of surviving if it went flying into the side of a mountain) and ask the flight attendant if this was normal. She assured me that it was and it would all be settled in about 5 minutes. After 78 years (give or take), we were in smooth air again. After that the flight attendants kept checking on me to make sure I was doing Ok. It was very kind of them. We took a real liking to them and ending up chatting with them quite a bit trying to figure out good things to do in their hometown of Wellington. They gave us some excellent tips!

Sadly Uber was not working so we had to take our first taxi of the trip. It was double what Uber would have cost. Boo! We made it to the hotel, though, and it is lovely. It is right in the CBD (central business district/downtown) and within walking distance to anything we'd want to do. Score! Our room is so well-appointed and we got an awesome fruit bowl to welcome us to town. Thanks, Intercontinental! We finally showered off (well-deserved after that hike) and snuggled in for some terribly trash, but highly addicting, reality television imported from the UK. HA! :) We're looking forward to properly exploring Wellington tomorrow!