Queens and Kings

If you are ever in Queenstown, the café Patagonia on the wharf makes a mean chili hot chocolate and a deliciously rich and creamy banana split gelato. Isn’t it ridiculous that I’m on a grand adventure around New Zealand with one of my best friends and I start the first blog post about it with a comment on food? I can’t help it! A fourth of my soul is made of meat, a fourth of dairy, a fourth of salad, and a fourth of chocolate. So you see, it’s not my fault that even across the world, food is always front and center in my mind.

Now to the actual adventures, with food interspersed amongst the stories.  

The drive from Christchurch to Mt. Cook Village was the most boring drive we’ll have on this trip, according to Dan, because for the first two hours we drove through farmland and rolling hills.

Gerty all packed up.

But then we hit the lakes and we stopped every five seconds to get pictures. I mean come on, look at the color of this water! How could you not stop?

Lake Tekapo and in all it’s teal glory.

At Lake Tekapo, we saw lots of little rock towers. I thought it looked like some ancient city, abandoned beside the sea.

Here is my structurally sound tower.

At the lake, there was also the most majestic dog statue I’ve ever seen.

Yummy lunch on the shores of Lake Tekapo. At least for some of us…

Lake Pukaki (yup that’s the real name) had similarly colored water, except it was even more opaque.

Lake Pukaki

We reached the hostel in Mt. Cook Village just before dinnertime. Dan and I are staying at hostels part of the Youth Hostel Association pretty much the entire trip, and to save money, we became YHA members. To save even more money, we bought the couples YHA membership so if anyone asks we’ve been dating for a year. We stayed in a seven person dormitory, which itself was pretty nice, but our roommates were all family or friends or something and they were loud as we tried to go to sleep and loud when they woke up around six. VERY frustrating. But we were not even in our room very much, so it didn’t matter.

Mt. Cook Village is an eerie place. It’s a tiny, tiny town (population: 400) made up of mostly motels and hostels. It is tucked right in against the mountains and it feels like it’s going to be destroyed at any moment. The mountains here rise straight into the sky without any introduction on the ground, illustrating the violent motions of the earth in New Zealand.

Mt. Cook Village

Mountains opposite the village with obvious landslide tracks.

Having my personal geologist along makes this trip even better because I can look at an odd land formation and Dan will explain to me how it was formed. He’s even better than Google because I can say, “That rock looks like skin!” And he can reply “Yeah. No not really.” It’s great.

The next morning, we walked to the Tasman Glacier before we left for Queenstown.

It’s not the majestic glacier I imagined but a rather grubby piece of ice. Can you spot it?

The icebergs in Lake Tasman are also not the pristine glittering gems we usually see in movies and National Geographic.

It sure was WINDY up there!

Off to Queenstown! The three and a half hour drive took us about six hour because of the constant stopping at:

The Wrinkly Ram Cafe, where we had to stop because of the name.

The Roaring Meg, where we had to stop because of the name.

This lake where we had to stop because Kiri needed lunch.

We finally reached Queenstown, checked into the Queenstown Lakeside YHA and headed out to scavenge for food. We ended up at Fergburger, a very famous burger spot in Queenstown. Usually, I stay away from the “famous” food stops because the lines are nuts and I feel like such a tourist, but this one was actually quick and it was fun trying the thing everyone (meaning Serious Eats and the Lonely Planet New Zealand guidebook) raved about.

Here was the place and the line that moved shockingly quickly.

And here were the burgers as big and my face. And good for a casual burger joint that’s whipping them out as a shocking speed. I'm dedicating the consumption of these behemoths to my father, lover of large food.

Queenstown is on yet another gorgeous lake, Lake Wakatipu.

The lake at sunset.

The next day was dominated by a hike to Ben Lomond Peak. It was billed as an eight hour trek for in-shape, experienced hikers ONLY, which, of course, Dan is and I am not. But you know these signs, they always try and scare away the people who possibly could get themselves into trouble so pretended that I never read the warnings.

On this map, you can see the totally weird shape of Wakatipu, Queenstown and Ben Lomond Peak right above Queenstown.

The sun shone as we started our hike up to the Ben Lomond Peak, but we started in a birch wood forest with branches so thick that it looked more like twilight than midmorning. In the forest there were also countless mountain biker trails, so Dan and I would be walking when suddenly on a parallel trail, a crazy person, a.k.a. biker, would come whizzing by, jump feet into the air, I’d shriek, and Dan would laugh. It reminded me of my cousins and how much fun they’d have flying down the paths. When we emerged from the woods and it was suddenly very, very sunny.

Impossible to squint any harder.

Although the hike was extremely steep, the views we got along the way and from the top were worth the huffing and puffing.

The summit of Ben Lomond Peak. Ten points if you can tell me the phase of the moon above the peak.

The mountains looked like someone took a giant rug and placed it across all the mountains. They all looked uniformly pale green and fuzzy, making it the perfect shag carpet for a dorm room in the 70s.

We reached the summit! You can start to see the odd shape of the lake. And the mountains along that side of the lake are called the Remarkables; they are popular ski fields (what they Kiwis call ski mountains).

The Summit Vanquisher (5 years old – present)

Mountain Woman

The trail is just visible along the ridge.

That night, we ate at The Cow, a pasta and pizza restaurant recommended by Serious Eats, and we felt we deserved some Serious Carbs.

Their famous garlic bread - the perfect side for pizza.

Bolognese Pizza

The crust wasn’t thin crust, but it was crunchy and not too bready with the strength to hold up the thick meat sauce. The atmosphere was also fantastic, old wooden booths that are shared among customers, and great music, such as The Jackson 5 and Chuck Berry. Dan got his usual and delicious Monteith’s Black and I got a very smooth Pinot Noir from the area. Basically, we lived like kings after conquering the mountain.

Today, Wednesday April 3, we grocery shopped, found a headphone splitter so we can watch movies with other hostelers around, and baked oddly puffy but still satisfying cookies. Then Dan got his haircut (it looks dashing) and I got into trouble buying reversible pants (I blame Char). Now here we are, sitting at Patagonia trying to download photos on the slowest internet ever and sipping my hot drink. Tomorrow we’re off to Te Anau, the walking capital of the world according to a flier Dan found. If you look it up online you’ll see why – it’s absolutely beautiful. Or maybe you can wait and I’ll tell you what’s it’s really like. I’m assuming it will go something like this – Te Anau is FREAKING BEAUTIFUL. But until then, enjoy the rest of your week!

(Disclaimer: I am fery surry if theree are typpfos or grammatical mistake, but I is a little in an hurry to nut oversty my velcom her at Patagone so I din’t profred. Sew sowry.)