NZ Honeymoon: Downtown Queenstown

Welcome to Downtown Queenstown! The town is quaint, yet rich. It has character, yet it's clean and fresh too. Lots of local flair, but also full of standards like Louis Vuitton and Starbucks. It was the perfect mix of both and Blane and just fell in love with the place.

 We spent our first afternoon just meandering around the area, checking stores out and seeing places in person that we'd read about in our guidebooks. Queenstown is very walkable-in fact, it's somewhat more difficult to drive because some of the streets are so narrow-so not having a car that first day worked out just fine. Above is a super cool clothing store (left) that Blane really liked. On the right is the window display for Louis Vuitton. And yes, we walked in there too. Do you know my husband? Haha

 I don't know what type of store this was but it made me think of my sister :)

 The local Starbucks. I was really disappointed to find that they had nothing that was different from the Starbucks back in the States. Usually at Starbucks abroad, something is different-be it a mug or a type of sweet they offer to a different kind of drink or even a cool gift card! But sadly, New Zealand Starbuck's aren't really that plentiful and they might as well have been in California. Sad face :(

 I thought this was funny and if you know my love of caffeine, then you understand why I took this picture. :)

 Besides all the shops, there were randon grassy knolls throughout the town too. It was a beautiful day and people were just hanging out at spots like these.

 One of the reasons why Queenstown is so beautiful is because of its location-look at the backdrop!

 One of the first eating places we stopped at was Patagona Chocolates, located directly across from where our water taxi docked. They are known for their homemade chocolates and decadent hot chocolate. Instead of cheese boards they do chocolate boards and here's ours. We chose all dark chocolate, but they have milk chocolate too. We brought our leftovers back home with us and still have some in our fridge! Mmmm :)

 The one super-touristy thing that they have is a gondola that goes all the way up one of their biggest hills so that you can see the vista of the area. Since it was a clear and sunny day, we decided to check it out. Here I am with our tickets!

 On the way up was this thing (bottom left). Queenstown is known as the "birthplace of bungy" and people were bungy jumping off the mountain! Eeeek! If you look closely you can see a person flying through the air. No thank you. I think I'll pass!

 At the top the views were amazing. 

 You could mountain bike or luge back down the mountain, but we opted to just take the gondola back again. Adventure-seekers we were not that day :)

Next up, let's get to grubbin' shall we?

Kiwi out,

Mrs. S

NZ Honeymoon: En Route to Queenstown CBD

Now that the holidays are over let's finish up these honeymoon recaps shall we?!? We're almost done! Last city on the queue up and running!

So the Hilton is located about 15 minutes outside of downtown Queenstown. To get there, you either go by car (about 15 minutes) or you can take the water taxi that leaves every half an hour from the dock in front of the hotel (about 10 minutes). Of course we had to take the water taxi for our first foray into town. What fun!

 Here is Blane in front of the water taxi. How beautiful is the background? It was an awesome day.

 The duck that was waiting with us, haha.

 See how clear the water was? We could see straight to the bottom from where we stood on the dock!

 Off we go!

 We sped past our room (there is is on the left!) as we took off and we took a quick pic.

 The sky was so blue and clear...it was a lovely day to be out on the water.

 Shortly after we left the Hilton, we saw the beginning of our destination: the town of Queenstown! Everything looked so quaint and full of character. I was excited to explore this place.

Here is the dock where the water taxi dropped us off. We were hungry and I had a whole guidebook of dogeared pages of places to try. Where did we go next?

Stay tuned!

Be back straightaway,

Mrs. S

NZ Honeymoon: Queenstown Hilton

Welcome to our final destination! We arrived in Queenstown in the late afternoon and hopped onto a shuttle that took us to our home for the next six days, the Queenstown Hilton.

Our room was the last one at the end of the building. How pretty is the setting of this place?

 As per his usual, my husband got us upgraded to a mini suite complete with a private jacuzzi on the balcony and a lake view. To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about staying at a Hilton when we booked it originally because I had had a not-so-great experience at the Hilton in New York (think a live cockroach. Ewww!) Thankfully, we got a free voucher from the NY experience that we got to use in NZ so we didn't have to pay for one night! Woot-woot!

The Queenstown Hilton blew my socks off. It had just opened six months prior to our stay there and it had oiled out most of its "new hotel" creases by the time we got there. The location was beautiful, the staff personable and kind, and the room gorgeous. They made us feel special by leaving chocolate and water in our room each day, comping us with free champagne to celebrate our honeymoon throughout or stay and greeting us by name whenever we saw a staff member. Yes, I said "by name." Hello luxury living, I like you :)

There was a special feeling about this place and Blane and I were excited to start exploring Queenstown. But how to get there? We didn't have a rental car and our hotel was a good 10-15 minutes outside of the town center. The Hilton offered a solution for guests like us. What was it? 

Next up~off to town we go!

Mrs. S

NZ Honeymoon: Nelson

We sadly said adieu to our little cottage on the ocean and drove the two and a half hour drive back to the city of Nelson. We had some time to kill before we had to be at the airport, so we took the opportunity to explore this city a bit.

This was a church in the middle of the town square. The cement steps were beautiful! I just love old churches. They feel so majestic and are usually beautiful. I always wonder if the the church is a Holy Spirit-breathing church or not. Hope so :)

For any of you Lord of the Rings fans out there, this pic is for you. As you know (if you're a true fan anyway) LOTR was filmed in NZ. Peter Jackson has a home in Wellington and he pretty much used majority local artisans for everything from props to wardrobe, etc. Jens Hansen is a renowned local jeweler in NZ who was commissioned by Mr. Jackson to create all of the rings used in the movie. Here we are holding the actual ring that they used for the movie posters and promo shots for all of the movies! They made three different sizes for the movies, since the ring is used in different capacities-i.e. in the giant's hand (medium size ring), on Frodo (small, regular size ring) and this large one that was for wide angle shots and posters.

 Just another tidbit about our time in New Zealand...the Rugby World Cup had literally just ended when we arrived and rugby fever was everywhere. It was especially prominent in the country because they not only hosted the event, they won too! Rugby pride and gear was everywhere.

 Saw this church and thought of my kiddos back home :)

Grammar difference alert: instead of saying "to-go" when referring to eating takeout or taking coffee or such, New Zealanders say they'll have it for "takeaway." In the beginning of our trip this was quite confusing, but once we were here in Nelson, we sounded like locals with our "two mochas (or americanos) for takeaway please" order. And yes, we repeated this order many, many times over the course of our trip ;)

We're off to our final destination next-Queenstown! Stick around to find out what we did and why we decided that it was the best city in New Zealand. Intrigued? Hope so :)

It's all about the bungy baby,

Mrs. S

NZ Honeymoon: Last Morning in Adrift

I woke up extra early on our last morning at Adrift because Bess had told me that the sunrises here were out-of-this-world amazing. Now, if you know me you know that mornings+Aimee=no go. So it had to take something spectacular to get me out of bed at 5:45am.

Hello, Spectacular.

There is something about the stillness of the morning coupled with the crisp air and, in this case, the sound of the waves breaking on the beach, that help you hear that quiet voice of God that much clearer.

"Be still, and know that I am God."

Sunrises rock,

Mrs. S

NZ Honeymoon: Abel Tasman

As mentioned before, one of the main reasons why we came to Golden Bay was to see Abel Tasman National Park. Now, Blane and I aren't big nature people, but we do enjoy seeing the beauty of God's creation...we just want to be able to sleep in a nice bed (not a tent!) after we do :) Haha.

Gordon and Bess at Adrift recommended a boat ride deeper into the park because it was more beautiful than what you would see just driving in yourself. So we signed up for the boat ride which I prayed would be short because I always get seasick!

We drove to the boat launch spot and when I saw the rikshaw that I thought was our boat, my stomach churned a big one. There was no way that I wasn't getting seasick on that thing! =/

Fortunately, that wasn't our boat (PHEW!!!) and when this newer, sleeker guy showed up, I was muy relieved, to say the least.

 Blane and I on the boat. No seasickness here! Thank goodness.

So the plan was that we would take a 15-20 minute boat ride north to an area of Abel Tasman that is not accessible via car. We would then hike back to where our car was parked...about a two hour hike. The hike was supposed to be beautiful, taking you from coastline into the forest and back to the water again. Were we up for this?!?

After we exited the boat (we were two of just five who departed for the hike) we found this sign to start us off towards our final destination: Totaranui!

 

The other three hikers took off so we were left on our own on yet another deserted beach. It was a beautiful hike, weaving in towards the sea and then back into the brush. Good thing it was a slightly overcast day because I think had it been sunny and hot, my husband wouldn't have made it. :) We ended up doing the hike in just under an hour and a half because we were trekking it! 

 All in all it was a beautiful hike. I'm glad we took the boat ride to the more remote area of the national park because it really was incredible to see the vistas and terrain that was mostly untouched by humankind. Growing up, my parents would always take J and I to national parks for our vacations. I have fond memories of us hiking and getting our "national passport" stamps at the visitor centers. It was neat for me to kind of continue this tradition with my new husband on our honeymoon.

 Tomorrow we say goodbye to Adrift but not before something quite phenomenal.
Stay tuned!
Mrs. S