Wednesday 24th February: Overcast, mild 15°C to 21°C
Brisbane to Queenstown: Flight Departed 9.15am, arrived Queenstown 3.40pm
Queenstown YHA Lakefront
Today is the start of our hike/bike and after our flight from Brisbane to Queenstown, we've booked the YHA Lakefront Youth Hostel where Donna and Milton have already checked in the day before, and Jenny and Graham, myself and Ian plan to meet them at 7pm.
An early start at 4.30am to walk and feed Chester before we leave. Paul, our super friendly Uber driver arrives at 6.15am and we're soon at the airport checking in. We met up with Jenny who had arrived separately having spent the previous night with the grandchildren, (Graham had stayed with us the previous night). Bonnie, who went to work at Virgin International at 3am and had kindly offered us a lift at 2.15am that morning, (no thanks Bon), came over to say goodbye.
View across the lake
Dining in style
The 3hr 30min flight was uneventful, however, with multiple flights arriving at the same time, it took 1hr to get through 14 Zig-zags of immigration and a further 40 minutes to get through Bio security. We were careful this time with the food as NZ screening is even more stringent than Australia, and brought in a few Back country quickie meals that were made in NZ - mind you made in New Zealand is no guarantee that they'll let the food in, as last year they threw out my Made in NZ dried peas!!
A 400 metre walk to the Remarkables supermarket where we stocked up on steak for dinner, mushrooms, onions and capsicums and a few other bits and pieces. We brought with us 5 bottles of Australian Shiraz, as NZ reds at $45 per bottle aren't fantastic! With more food than we can eat in a week, we decide to hail a taxi to take us right to the door of the YHA. $41.60 was way cheaper than getting on and off two buses with a weeks shopping.
Our rooms are compact - a double bed and 4 square feet of floor space, but clean and tidy with the showers and toilets up the hallway. We're soon downstairs in the large hostel kitchen, chatting over a few beers and wines. Our steaks with mushroom onion and capsicum is nice. Donna bought lamb chops - as you do in NZ - and they were nice and tender, not like the ones we had last year which we're sure were mutton, the tender lamb chops having been exported.
After long reminiscing conversations, its time to go and pack before turning in for the night.