Day 341: Flight to New Zealand

Sometimes to save money, you’ll do really stupid things like booking a 7 hour flight to New Zealand with a layover in Melbourne, even though you could go direct for 2 hours. Well we did it. Benefits included some Pokémon Puzzle League practice, book reading, and watching Lord of the Rings to prepare.

The flight into Queenstown was amazing. You fly directly over the Fjords and snow peaks, and zigzag to land on the air strip. As you descend, you fly closer to the mountains and can see the deep blue rivers over head. We land around 7pm. Upon exiting the aircraft outside, we feel the wonderful cold breeze of 55 degree weather 😍😍 it was Patagonia all over again and we are so happy to be out of the heat!

For our New Zealand trip, we plan to camp a bit to save money; a big tip we received is to visit second hand stores or Facebook marketplace to pick up gear. We made connection with Henrique who had tents for sale; he and his wife are originally from Brazil and have lived in New Zealand the last 10 years. They were so kind and actually set the tent up in side their living room so we could test. Unfortunately Kieran was too tall so the tent didn’t work.

It was 9pm by the time we reach Queenstown so we opt for Fat Badgers Pizza because it was the only restaurant with a still open kitchen. Queenstown feels like a ski town and the cold weather created a true Christmas feel. We could park downtown for free and could walk everywhere. Such a cool city.

Hostel:
Nomads Queenstown

Food:
Pizza

Spots:
Hanleys Farm
QueenstownRead more