First, I've decided to include more info on our accomodation & places we ate.

Accomodation: 

The Loft Apartments at 61 Shotover are great! The location can't be beat if you want to be in town. They're very reasonably priced and ours could have slept 6 if needed. They all come with kitchens & laundry which is a bonus.  Eating out in Queenstown is pricey so you want a place that has a kitchen! 

Dining:  

Fergburger - top notch, always busy (see below)
Bombay India - right accross from the lofts, good Indian food, not too expensive
Hell's Pizza- Highly recommended, but ours was just "good", not "great". I think they put out better pizzas, ours was just a little too oniony.
Joes Garage- A little hard to find, but worth the search. We had takeaway lunches, but the breakfasts they were serving up looked amazing as well. Great coffee too.

Getting there:

Here's a hot tip for flying international. Leave the night of a major holiday. Planes are half full and the available deals can't be beat. We opted to leave Christmas night because the deal was too good to pass. What would normally set you back close to $1,000 is only about $300. What's even better is for an extra $200, you can upgrade to premium seats, or for an extra $800 you can upgrade to business class!

We opted to keep our normal seats since Air NZ was good enough to give us the seats requested. Laura did convince her neighbor to move accross the cabin so she could have two seats to herself! I stand by past comments on Air NZ being at the top of their game on flight service and comfort.

We decided to start in Queenstown which is the adrenaline junkie capital of the world and what I consider the "Lake Tahoe" of NZ. Queenstown has limitless outdoor activities and is a good option for a few days to unwind. I did my share of rafting and riverboarding last time so we planned to focus on the rest of the options this time.

So while Laura decided to sleep a bit to catch up from the flight, my first stop would be the wine tasting shop! New Zealand wines are fantastic. With mutiple styles of Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blancs than rival those of the U.S., an entire trip could be dedicated just to wineries.  We get a few NZ wines imported to the U.S., but these are not a true representation. It would be analagous to people in England thinking Gallo is "Napa valley" wine. Get the idea?

New Zealand also has "self-serve" wine shops where you surrender a credit card and run up a tasting tab. It's simple, you insert your card in the "wine tasting machine" and just push a button to taste one of about a hundred available wines. This is about the coolest idea I've ever seen! You can sample a Pinot Noir from every region of the country without walking more than five feet! Why don't we have these??? Our uptight ABC (alcohol beverage control) rules must prevent this arrangement, otherwise it seems like a money printing machine and we'd have them in the U.S. After a quick inspection, and a few tastes (okay, five) I checked back on Laura and we went for a leisurely tour of the town. Day one passed quickly as we were slightly tired from the travel and still burned out from work & the holidays. We made resolutions to be more productive in the days to follow and called it a night.

Day 2: WIth grand plans to take a trip to Milford Sound and maybe do some sort of excursion (Laura swore we'd go on a LOTR tour), we started out with at trip up the gondola to do some day hiking and think about paragliding. The views from the top speak for themselves!



By the end of day two, we were sure of two things. One, we wouldn't be doing any adrenaline sports and two, Laura's tiredness & mild cold had evolved into a full blown "nasty cold".  We decided to take it easy and mend the cold. Queenstown has great walking paths, gardens, an active waterfront with an old steam ship, as well as shopping, movies and many options for dining out so a few days of easy travel were fine with us. After all, we had auto-wine tasting and Fergberger within half a block so really, what else could you want?



What is a Fergberger? Fergberger is the BEST BURGER I've had anywhere in the world. I have had burgers all over the U.S., Europe and South America, but there is not contest, Fergburger is the best! With about half a pound of New Zealand beef, all the add-ons you can imagine, on a bun that fills a 9 inch plate, it's worth going to the New Zealand just to get one. Laura was skeptical, and has listened to my raving about them for the past year, but after she inhaled her first Fergburger she is fully converted.   They also have deer, fish, shrimp, chicken, turkey and vege burgers too.   I can't believe I forgot to take a picture!

  

So day three was filled the the above mentioned wine tasting, Fergburgers, wandering around the town & gardens and a cross-lake trip on the TSS Earnslaw, a vintage (1912) coal-fired steam ship. Yeah, sure it's totally touristy, but the inside of the ship & the boiler room were really cool! We squeezed in a movie as we like to compare "movie viewing experiences" in all the countries we visit.  The three big differences; First, Kiwis laugh more easily and were much more entertained by the previews than a U.S. audience would have been. Also, while Thailand would have you stand for the King before each movie, NZ has safety commercials for "earthquake preparedness".    Second, concessions are comparitively super-cheap (think 1970's U.S. prices).  Third, the movie picture & sound was more "vintage" than we are accustomed to at home, sort of like the '70's again ( I'm thinking my home system sounds better).   

So whether you want to go all out on the adrenaline train or just relax, Queenstown is a good first stop!