This was it, our last day in New Zealand. It was time to go
home. None of us was looking forward to the long series of
flights back to
Chicago, but we did still have most of a day to spend in New Zealand,
so we wanted to make the most of it. We woke up to much nicer
weather this morning and loaded up the van to head back to
Queenstown. We had just driven through Queenstown on the way to
Te Anau, but we wanted to get a chance to actually explore it some
today. It was about a 2 hour drive from Te Anau to Queenstown,
which is funny because Queenstown and Te Anau are only about 45 miles
apart as the crow flies. Unfortunately for driving, there's a
major mountain range and several lakes between them, but that's what
makes the area so beautiful to visit. The first 2/3rds of the
drive was pretty uneventful except for the bird that I
hit with the van. Eventually, we came to a really big lake
surrounded by mountains. We stopped several times to take
pictures as there were some really cool low clouds hanging on to the
side of the mountains.
Lake and mountain views along the road
The road hung tight to the side of the lake and was very curvy and
windy.
More hanging clouds in the mountains
We got to Queenstown and found a parking spot. We walked around
town and went down to the lake front. Queenstown is a very nice
little town surrounded by lakes and mountains. It is very scenic
and if we ever go back to New Zealand, I'd like to spend some more time
in the area. We did a little bit of shopping and then it was time
for lunch. While doing research about Queenstown we kept reading
about Fergburger.
Fergburger was reported to have the best burgers in New Zealand, so we
had to try them. While we were walking around trying to find it,
we came across Fat Badgers Pizzeria. Seeing the red and white
sign almost made us change our mind, but we were determined to see if
Fergburger could live up to its hype.
New Zealand Badger Fans?
We found Fergburger as well as a big line. Obviously the place
was popular. We ordered our food and everybody really liked
it. The food was also pretty reasonably priced for what you
got. After lunch we headed towards the airport so we could start
the process of returning the van, checking in and going through
security. It turns out the Queenstown airport doesn't make you go
through security until it is time to board your flight, so we got to
the airport way too early. We ended up walking around the airport
trying to kill the time. Eventually it was time to board our
flight to Auckland. By the time we landed in Auckland it was
raining, so we once again didn't get to see anything of Auckland from
the air. We made the transfer to the international terminal and
boarded the plane for the 12 hour flight to LA.
The flight to LA was pretty bumpy for the first couple of hours as we
flew on the outskirts of a large typhoon. Eventually it settled
down and we all tried to get some sleep. Since we passed the
dateline, we actually arrived in LA before we left Auckland. We
left Auckland on Saturday evening and arrived in LA early in the
morning on Saturday. We had some trouble getting seats together
on the plane for the flight from LA to Chicago, but we eventually got
Erin and Tyler in the same row and then I convinced the 3rd person in
that row to switch with me when we boarded the plane. We got back
to Chicago on time and picked up our car at the off site parking
lot. We still had to drive back to Wisconsin which was harder
than it seemed because we were all exhausted and it was dark out.
I managed to stay awake enough to get us to my parent's house where we
could spend the night before driving back to Iowa in the morning.
We were all sad to leave New Zealand. The trip was certainly one
of the best experiences of my life and we talk about going back quite
frequently. New Zealand really is a fantastic place to
visit. The variety of scenery and activities is truly
amazing. If we go back, we'll either go for longer, or try to
stick to just one island. We probably crammed too much stuff into
our two week trip, but we did manage to see most of the big things we
wanted to see and were lucky to have great weather for most of the trip.
I am really glad to have been able to share it with Erin and Tyler as well as my parents.
Back to trip home
