Queenstown, New Zealand

Although the title of this entry is "city-hopping", that doesn't really describe my activities over the past four or five days. Not the "hopping" bit, mind, but "city" is rather a generous description for some of the places I've been!

After my time in Franz Josef Glacier, which I thought was a small town, I moved 150km down the coast to Haast, primarily because the hostel in my next intended destination was full.

The coach service makes a ten minute stop in Haast, which would have been slightly more time than I needed to see the whole town. Unfortunately, I had booked a night's accommodation at the hostel there, so I spent around 24 hours and 5 minutes too long there. If I'd read the blurb on the place before going I might have realised that it's not exactly a thriving metropolis, but more of "a base for activities such as walking and white-water rafting in the greater Haast region". Personally, the use of the words "great" and "Haast" in the same sentence is slightly offensive: the town 'haasn't' got much to offer. (You may groan, but coming up with that pun is the most interesting thing I did while I was there!)

My opinions probably aren't helped by the fact that it rained all the time I was there, but I didn't let that stop me from seeing the sights. There's the supermarket (which was more of a convenience store) and the Fantail Restaurant (which was more of a café) and, erm, the hostel. Can you tell I'm struggling?

The most galling thing about my stay in Haast was that I broke my umbrella exiting the phonebox when I was about to leave. Thankfully the rain stopped a few hours afterwards, but the coach trip over the Haast pass (must be that Greater Haast again) was spectacular, with all the streams overflowing their banks, and spray covering the road whenever a channel went down the cliff next to the road. In fact, when I reached Wanaka, a notice declared that the pass was closed due to flooding. Thank goodness the coach wasn't later: I might have had to stay in Haast for another day!

In comparison to the last two places I'd been, Wanaka seemed like Los Angeles. It has ATMs, internet cafés, snack bars, restaurants (real ones too), and to top it off, has a spectacular location next to Lake Wanaka. Sadly I only had an afternoon in the place: thanks to my lack of time and full hostels, I seem to be moving on rather too frequently, and the next morning I was off to the village at Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand (and Australia too, as the Kiwis are pleased to say). Perhaps I'm running out of superlatives, but the scenery there is awesome! I have a feeling that there's an outpost of Middle Earth around too, as the wide flat valley flanked with mountains looked quite familiar. As I had no intention of climbing the mountain and don't have deep enough pockets to go for a helicopter flight around it, I took the opportunity to soak up the view... there are a few walks around to lookout points and so forth. In fact, I could almost see the summit of Aoraki ("The Cloud Piercer" in the Maori language) from the window of the youth hostel.

The village, however, is just that, without even a convenience store to speak of. There's a population of about 200 people, but the place has a school, all of whose students I spotted playing five-a-side football at once this morning. Yes, a nice place, and if I could have stayed there longer I would have loved to. Interestingly, the village is only 30km away from the Franz Josef Glacier township - just over the mountains.

My next bus trip retraced the previous day's, and brought me to the adventure capital of New Zealand, Queenstown. With 16,000 people plus tourists, it feels absolutely huge! From the publicity I'd read, it appeared to be a backpacker town, but there are lots of posh hotels and expensive houses here too, complete with expensive restaurants and shops. Thankfully for my wallet, I managed to find the KFC and the supermarket :-)

Tomorrow morning I ship out (again) for the university town of Dunedin. I'm not sure what I'll find there, except for a Reformed Church, the steepest street in the world, and a Cadbury's factory! See you there.