Moments Like These: Queenstown 2010

For those of you who don't know, I study Tourism at The Sir George Seymour College of Tourism & Travel. Part of this, is going on famils (Familarisation Trips) which is basically feild trips in course. On Monday we had our first one which was a 3 day trip to Queenstown. There were 41 students and 3 tutors who all got on a bus and made the journey through Central Otago to the Tourism Centre of the South Island.

DAY ONE

I woke up and had a mad rush to find all the last minute things to pack (hair straightners, shampoo, tooth brush etc etc) before calling a taxi at 8:30am to be at campus before 9:00am. I thought it wouldn't take long, because course is less than a 2 minute drive from my house. I would've walked if I didn't have my large duvet and bag to carry! At five to nine, the taxi finally arrived!!! I was so annoyed, but just smiled to the driver and asked how his morning had been.

I arrived at the campus and loaded my stuff on the bus, and at bang on 9 O'Clock, we were off to Queenstown. First stop was Alexandra. It was a rather long and boring drive, with a few people getting car sick, luckily not me. We arrived in Alex, and picked up some fellow students and were off to Cromwell. We stopped and got our photo taken with the GIANT FRUIT! and then got some food into us. After half an hour we were off to Arrowtown for a short break before going to the Millsbrooke Resort for a look around.

Arrowtown was so cute and little. I fell in love with all the cute little shops on its cute little street hehe. We then went to the Millsbrooke and got the grand tour from a worker. Unfortunately we weren't staying there as it would cost $300 + a night. It was so fancy, it had its own golf course, spa, four restaurants, gym...EVERYTHING! After that we finally made our way to Queenstown (woohoo!).

We arrived at our accommodation (Lakeland Christian Camp...Dorm style accommodation) and settled in before going to get dinner in town.

DAY TWO

I woke up at 7:00am (out of habit) and laid in bed wondering if anybody else would be in the kitchen getting breakfast. When I finally got up half an hour later, there were alot more people than I expected. Sadly for me, I felt like cereal but we only had toast! So it was just a Milo for me! At 9:30am we were all on the bus into town to go do our own activities. Myself, along with half of the other students chose to do the Kawarau Jet Boat.

It was fun, but I thought I had been on better jet boats up in the North Island.

The only good thing, was the hot driver hehehe.

After the hour long boat ride, we had 2 hours to waste in town...rather broing really. My friends and I spent most of the time going into shops (not buying much because everything costs an arm and a leg) and then sitting in starbucks soaking up the sun (out of the cold). We then made our way to the Copthorne Hotel for another "inspection"....There's not much to say about that.

We left the hotel and went to the Skyline Gondola to go Luging, see a haka show and have dinner. The gondola was a little scary for me at first (I have a slight fear of heights) but soon adjusted to it and enjoyed myself. It kind of helped that a girl in the same gondola was more scared than me!!!

Queenstown from the Gondola

Once Again (a little higher)

Once we were up the top we had our 2 rides on the luge, in my opinion they were fun, but not as good as the ones in Rotorua. Afterwards we went to the Kiwi Haka Show inside. It was so cool, I wanted it to last longer. They did alot of singing and spoke about the culture and made it entertaining. The performers got a heap of us onto the stage to teach us how to use a poi. I was one of the selected few to make a dick of myself!!!

After the show we went back upstairs, and had an AMAZING buffet dinner!!! I had nearly everything there was to offer, and when it came to dessert...OMGOSH!!!!!

On the way down, I tried to get photos of Queenstown at night, but my phone just couldn't do it justice. It was so pretty!

DAY THREE

So today, we packed and left Queenstown (boo hoo) and made the journey back home to Dunedin. We got to Alexandra and a friend from course offered to drive me home in her car instead of sitting on a bus for 4 hours. We took the short way home and got back in 2 hours!

So since there was nothing amazing about today, I'll finish off with some videos and photos!