Jan 24, 2024: Queenstown

Our first day as tourists! We cooked up a hearty breakfast and walked into town, stopping to try Life’s a Grind’s lattes and flat whites (I learned that a flat white, a kiwi fave, is essentially just latte with less foam. I’m still unclear on what makes a long black different from an Americano.)

We hopped on our shuttle to meet some rental bicycles and ride through the winery-filled Gibbston Valley.

It was a beautiful drive, and we were the only 3 in the shuttle, so we had plenty of opportunity to pepper the driver with questions.

Apparently, the valley’s pines are being poisoned and taken out (burn piles sold to locals for firewood) because they are an introduced species and nothing grows through the pine needle carpet. This is theoretically going to help replant native trees, buuut also will make room for some billion dollar houses.

It IS a gorgeous area, with the Remarkables dusted in snow to the east and Cornet peak on the west (both good local ski hills according to our driver).

Being on bikes was awesome. Felicity suggested we return the rental car. But I must say, my buns preferred my own bike. So we stuck to the well-signed trail with a generous tailwind.

It reminds me a bit of the Okanagan with steep hillsides, marching-band-prefect lines of vines, but it is a bit greener. The dead give away that we’re on another continental shelf altogether? Bird song.

We stopped at ?four wineries. I learned that this valley is mostly schist and loess, (schist is a medium grade metamorphic rock, characterised by wavy lines and it breaks easily; loess is deposits of silt, usually by wind, but also glaciation). This makes for good drainage, good soil depth, and lots of mineral qualities.

I also guess that this is glacial terrain, where the glacier scooped out a bigger valley, and then a river has carved a gorge into the valley bottom, but I am guessing. The gorge has resulted in some great bridges, and apparently some epic floods as the water’s corse is so narrow, it rises quickly!

Some of us were tempted by bungee jumping, but we heard that wine is good for jetlag, so we carried on to taste local Pino gris, Sauvignon blanc, Chardonnay, and Pino noir.

We spent the evening wandering Queenstown’s waterfront, the gardens (many cool trees, plants, and a disc golf course!), and ogling the lake and mountains.

Mum tried a new method of getting cash (she attempted to pay for our pub dinner, but the new barkeep mixed up the tables and charged her their bill, buuuut then couldn’t figure out how to manage a return, so refunded that transaction in cash!)

Alice