Queenstown, New Zealand

Boxing Day 26/12/13

Apartment: The Rees Hotel & Luxury Apartments – 377 Frankton Rd, Queenstown, New Zealand

Our day started at 4.30 am as we had an early flight from Sydney to Queenstown. The taxi arrived on time at 5.45 am and our Bangladeshi driver didn’t draw breathe from Bondi until the airport. The main ‘take away’ from his rant was the problem of ‘no stopping’ zones for taxis in the city of Sydney.

The flight over the Tasman ended up being a direct flight and we were thankful for that. We arrived into Queenstown at about 1.30 pm, picked up the hire car and headed to our lake view apartment. This proved to be lovely and provided a nice backdrop to watch the first day of the Boxing Day cricket match from Melbourne. The Concierge helped us to book some activities for the coming days; a day trip to Dart River and an evening harbour cruise for New Year’s Eve. We did venture out a little later to the ‘Remarkables Park’ shops for some supplies but we opted to stay and dine at the Hotel Restaurant for dinner. That was not the best decision of the day but you live and learn. This did provide what proved to be the ‘highlight’ of the day though and this was the length of time it took to get our bottle of wine at dinner. It took 3 staff members and 3 attempts for them to obtain the correct bottle of wine and, then, it took about 10 min to get the cork out of the bottle.

Our plans for tomorrow include a morning walk into Queenstown and, then, a trip out to Arrowtown and some vineyards.