We arrived in Queenstown and found a campsite to stay using our camping NZ app. It was a little further out of town, so we stopped in a curry house in town before setting off there for the night. We had an awesome curry, we just fancied a bit of home comfort food. After the curry we left to find our campsite, we drove past the beautiful lake and stopped to admire the views. We found the campsite and as it was up a big hill, it felt a little chilly, so we decided to camp in the car rather than setting up our tent. We settled down for the night really having a good feeling about Queenstown. For the next couple of days we spent time wandering about the city getting to know the place.

Fergburger

And of course just like all new places, there's definitely a few must do things for first timers . Prior to this trip, most people whom I've met that have been to Queenstown before constantly talked about the famous Fergburger. This burger is so amazing that it's only found in Queenstown. Having heard that, we just had to come and try it for ourselves.

There was a really long queue of people. My initial reaction was to go somewhere else and eat and come back the next day but for once, we decided to join the crowd. And much to my surprise, the line was actually not for people queuing for order but people waiting for their food. And also tourists waiting inside the restaurant, snapping pictures away while watching other diners eating their burgers. This place is so busy that they only close at 4am and re-open at 7am!

The most popular item on the menu was the 'Fergburger'- the original. Of course, John decided to have one of these with extra cheese for an extra 50 cents, the burger itself is $10, which in the UK is about £5. I decided that the meaty burgers looked too big for my little mouth to manage so opted for the veggie option- 'The Bun Laden', which was a falafel burger with lemon yoghurt, chipotle and chilli sauce . The wait of 10 minutes was easily passed by admiring the walls, full of memorabilia, burger reports and merchandise from Fergburger.

Every table was full, but luckily a table became available while we were waiting for our food, so we grabbed it just in time for our order to be ready. John got served his Fergburger in a white paper bag with the Fergburger logo (presumably that of “Ferg” on it). I was going to take a picture of it, but he'd demolished it before I could even get the chance! He said it was one of the best burgers he'd ever tasted. My order swiftly followed in a brown paper bag and it smelled good. I took a bite and it was very delicious, but it took me a lot longer than John to finish it. I did save him a little bite to try, but he said it didn't have a patch on the Fergburger! After we ate our burgers, we gave up our seats and left with our bellies full to the brim!

Minus 5 Ice Bar

After we left Fergburger, we headed to the ice bar . I’ve always wanted to visit an ice bar – and in particular, I saw this one on the Worldly Nomads blog. They posted some really cool pics which I saw and just knew I had to come to the one in Queenstown. We wanted to have the opportunity to enjoy a truly ice cold beverage, so it was never going to be something we'd pass up in a hurry! Now the thing about an ice bar is it’s really cold – so me rocking up in a dress was never the brightest idea – luckily for me Minus 5 provides you with everything you need; winter jacket, gloves and even some ugg boots if you fancy it! Looking more like eskimos than bar patrons we were escorted into the bar (essentially an industrial sized freezer!) to let our ice experience begin…

To my surprise, the bar was rather small in size but it was a pretty epic sight to behold…literally everything was made of ice – from the chairs and tables, right down to the cups and shot glasses themselves! With our breathe hanging in the air, we got cracking on the cocktails – all mixed up by a rather chilly looking barmaid . Of course, once the first round was in came to obligatory ice bar photos – a fairly difficult endeavour, given the fact it was actually -8 in the bar at the time and you have to remove your gloves to get an iPhone touch screen to work!

Despite the rather compact size of the place, they had managed to fit alot in, and the entire place was adorned with pretty amazing ice sculptures – from the shelves of the bar itself, through to the Maori inspired centre piece, a full sofa (which came with a deer skin throw to stop you sticking to it!) and even a gorilla head bin for your used “glasses”. The whole bar was beautifully lit too, with mood lighting changing from blues and greens through to purples, all illuminating and bouncing through the ice – which made it a great place to get some unique shots.

Considering the cost of things in NZ, the ice bar was actually pretty dam good value for money – with entry costing $20 or the entry and 2 cocktail package being $38. Given the fact you can easily pay $20 for cover charge in this part of the world, being able to score some $10 cocktails (which were really tasty and pretty strong too!) is a backpacker bargain, let alone being able to chill out – quite literally – in somewhere as unique as Minus 5. The morning after the ice bar we had to leave to get to our next destination. I would thoroughly recommend a trip to Queenstown, it's such a beautiful place, probably one of the best in Newzealand.