Queenstown- Lovely But Too Cold!

We had big plans for Queenstown, we wanted to stay here for 5 months, get a job, then ski and snowboard to our hearts´ content. Unfortunately it was raining when we arrived. And it didn't stop for a week. It was cold and miserable. The plan was to get out of the van as soon as possible as it was just getting too cold to live in it anymore. But we had to get jobs first. This proved to be really difficult..we walked around for a week or so with our CV´s and nothing came up- we got really fed up and so so cold..it was -2 outside and we were living in a van!

Queenstown itself is a lovely place, set on a beautiful lake with some of the best scenery in New Zealand surrounding it. The town is really lively and great fun to be in. I bumped into 2 old school friends while we were there- they were trying to do the same as us-work and play in this amazing place! We had a couple of good nights out with them- the night-life in Queenstown is fun! We found some great spots to sleep with amazing views (as well as sleeping in a car park after a night out and getting woken up at 6am by a banging on the window to tell us we´re breaking the law..whoops!)


I think our highlight of our whole 3 week stay in Queenstown was Fergburger. We had heard great things about this burger joint and was recommended it by everyone! It certainly lived up to the hype..the burgers are simply amazing. Probably in our Top 3 burgers of all time. And the choice..there were so many to choose from it was so difficult to make a decsion! On our last trip Chris had the Big Al- this is a double serving of prime New Zealand beef (1/2 lb), lashings of bacon, a huge amount of cheese, 2 eggs (yes 2 eggs!), beetroot, lettuce, tomato and relish! It was a seriously BIG burger. He ate it all, and some fries and half of my burger too! It was hard to stay away from Fergburger, it was the busiest place in Queenstown..everyone loves it!

So after about a week we really got fed up with the lack of jobs and the freezing temperatures. However my Mum came to the rescue..she surprised us with a week in an apartment nearby! Amazing! We were so happy..Tom was with us too and we´d all got so miserable being so cold so this was so exciting- to be warm for a whole week! The apartment was great - Sky TV, heating and with a gorgeous view over the lake. Perfect. Unfortunately by this point we had pretty much run out of money and made the big decision to leave Queenstown to look for jobs elsewhere. In the meantime we had a fun week in the warmth and really enjoyed Queenstown without the stress of getting jobs.

We walked up the Queenstown Hill one day which was so good..the walk was quite steep but we were rewarded with stunning views across the lake and far beyond. We also took part in one of the many extreme activities on offer in Queenstown..I´ll leave that for Chris to write about!

It is such a lovely area- we were so sad that things didn´t work out and we weren´t going to be staying there all winter. It was a really hard decision to make as we´d dreamt of spending a whole season up the slopes but getting jobs was just so difficult- we had got there too early in the season and people just weren´t hiring at this time. There was also 1000 other people there trying to live the same dream as us- not great when jobs are sparse!

So we were sad to be leaving, but excited about the next chapter in our travels..wherever that may be! Overall, I think the hardest thing about leaving Queenstown was that we hadn´t eaten all the burgers on the menu at Fergburger. Disappointing.