NZ Day 1 & 2

Monday, 12 December 2022

Jett, Jon and I are finally having the remnants of our NZ  holiday that we booked for the start of 2021 and then moved in vain to the start of 2022. It was going to be about 3 weeks and include the Oceania Orienteering Championships but now it's just an 11 day hiking holiday which Zali has decided to skip.  

Day 1 didn't quite go as planned - we were supposed to fly direct to Auckland then transfer quickly for a domestic flight down to Queenstown arriving at 9pm.   No one big event caused this to go wrong but a combination of a half hour sitting on the Hobart tarmac, a slow exit from the Auckland flight, and an exceedingly long wait for luggage meant we arrived at the domestic check-in, (sweating profusely after our 800m dash from the international terminal) just about exactly when the flight closed.  As it wasn't our fault, Air NZ fairly quickly sorted us (and a whole lot of other people who also missed their connections) with vouchers for transit, hotel and meals, as well as a new flight for the next morning.  The worst thing about this was probably the long wait for the massively overcrowded bus to take us to the hotel (covid anyone?).  Thankfully, once at the hotel we were ushered straight into the buffet for dinner (bliss), then quickly issued room keys after we'd eaten. In the morning we got free breakfast then a much less crowded bus back to the airport and a smooth flight down to Queenstown where we picked up our hire car, went to the supermarket and checked into our accommodation, both of which had been waiting for us since the previous night. All up it really wasn't too bad as we had no plans for today except to shop and prepare for our hike tomorrow.  Our apartment is lovely so perhaps it would have been nice to stay the extra night but it would have been dark anyway when we arrived:

Once we finally arrived, we unwound,  had lunch then headed up to Queenstown proper for a bit of a wander around:

It was a beautiful day and quite a few people were braving the cold looking lake.  We bought some souvenir frisbee golf discs and went down to Queenstown Gardens to play a round on their lovely course.  Despite some wayward shots, I'm pleased to report that no passers by were injured.

Jon won the first round of 9 holes, then I won the back round.  Jett neither killed anyone or lost the disc, so that's a victory on its own. 

We wandered back up to town for some icecreams then came home to properly pack for hiking tomorrow.  To work up a new appetite we then went for a stroll along the lake from our accommodation:

Our place is one of the red townhouses: 

Then we rewarded ourselves for surviving our long day (we had to get up at 5:50am - 3:50am AUS time) with uber eats for dinner - we also reckoned we were financially ahead with a dinner and a breakfast on AirNZ's dime, so we could splurge.

Now we're doing some final tidy up and keeping our fingers crossed that Jett's sudden sneezing and tiredness is just a quick thing, and not covid, as we'll have to come up with a plan B if he's coming down with it.