Q Town baby!

‘ARE YOU READY FOR A BIG NIGHT OUT?’

‘YEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS’

Welcome to Queenstown.

In an underground bar with a old generator fan acting as a very odd focal point for the bar, Ollie and I stood and laughed with the two guys we would be spending the night with. Hopefully not in the way that might have just sounded. We had met Ross and Frankie earlier that day. They were sharing the same room as us in the hostel. Then as we chatted about Ollie and I being young and yet very married, I felt like I’d known them longer than only a few hours.  And that’s one of the best parts to traveling. Meeting people!

Our leader for the evening was ‘Benny’. A Jack Black lookalike who had a voice that was much larger than him. We followed this guy as we moved from bar to bar, constantly yelling his name in a loutish fashion that I’m sure must have annoyed him after the first twenty times. The free shot (although I have a feeling it was more likely actual tar than anything alcoholic) was only a bonus because of the face Ollie pulled as he downed them.  Scared rabbit mixed with a crying infant that has lost its dummy. But as the notes slipped from the wallet the night descended into a wonderful chaos that both Ollie and I had been looking forward to. The perfect way to begin his birthday weekend!

I had never been to an ice bar before. I don’t really want to ever to go one again. It was fun, just not worth the apparent $30pp entry fee. Luckily we didn’t have to pay that as we were on a bar crawl waaaaaaayyyyy (Sorry, I feel the need to do that every time someone says bar crawl...waaaayyyy!) and so we enjoyed, if one can enjoy being frozen whilst trying to sip a cocktail, the bar for the novelty it was. After all everything and I mean everything is made from ice so I guess that’s kinda cool. Unless you’re an Inuit and often build ice structures. Then I suppose it would just appear unnecessary, impractical and another foolish pursuit of non snow dwelling people. And then after being aghast at the foolishness of it all those Inuits would bring up their favourite groan of how everyone calls them Eskimos and how damn rude that is.

Back to the story. This is the part where I made a very rookie error. I did not place my drink on a designated coaster. Now in someone’s house this would merely be perceived as rude. But in an ice bar, it leads to your drink slipping at unstoppable pace from the table and spilling over the floor. Fortunately I found this hilarious and it didn’t matter because it had been my free drink, which was more cranberry juice than any actual alcohol but I expected nothing less. So I purchased a ‘real’ cocktail and even paid an extra two bucks to have it served in a glass made of ice. Wow. I know!

You had to wear gloves to bare holding the glass and after trying to stand casually whilst I sipped my drink and trying not to let my tongue get stuck to the ice, I put it down to grab the camera. Oh Amy. Once again I completely failed to make use of one of the conveniently placed coasters and my $10 drink went careering off the ice table so that the first I knew of what had happened was when the glass smashed on my feet. Again I did nothing but bend over in fits of laughter and after realising I wasn’t annoyed and it was safe to laugh, so did the lads! I had been enjoying my ‘mildly cold sunset penguin’ or whatever ridiculously named cocktail I’d had so I went and ordered another one. And thanks to my sad eyes and a few helpful sound bites from the guys, I managed to get my cocktail...for a whole....$2 less. A bit harsh I reckon! We had been striving for a free one! 

After the adventures of the ice bar (a lot can happen in forty minutes) and having my picture taken with an oversized stuffed Penguin, we moved on to other warmer bars. There was a band playing in one and I tried to form a mosh pit in the middle of our crowd. In hindsight it probably wasn’t the type of music you could mosh to. I think I get an award for trying though, my attempt during ‘Down Under’ was almost a success...

And so our marvelously fun night ended outside Ferg Burger in deep conversation with an Australian that didn’t mind me talking about his ‘bum chin’ and asking about shrimps and barbies. Apparently he was a milder form of Aussie than I have become accustomed to. He took my sense of humour rather well. I think we all got into a conversation about mining, Ollie’s geology degree and money but I had kind of drifted off into my bag of breaded onion rings by that point. But the most important part of our time outside Ferg Burger was Ollie and I discovering it for the first time. I think they literally make the best take away burgers in the world and I welcome that statement with challenges! I have never seen such fresh, big and packed burgers in all my life! Ollie could barely finish his which, if you know him well, is a pretty impressive achievement for a burger! They even do great vegetarian ones too which is always a bonus as many restaurants and take aways in New Zealand simply refuse to believe that non meat eaters even exist!

Tucked up in bed we managed to wake up the other people in our room with our ‘whispers’. Although I won’t lie, I wasn’t trying very hard to whisper. One guy did say he was enjoying our joke telling though so it’s nice to know we were appreciated. Ollie set our alarm. We had to be up in three hours.

* * * *

I sat up and the room finally came to halt. My mouth was the bottom of a rabbit hutch. All I could think was that I know better than to ever touch ‘free’ alcohol. It does nothing but make you feel horrific. I hadn’t even had that much to drink but when you’re trying to stick to what’s on offer and what’s on offer is one of your worst enemies that you would never normally touch (vodka mehhh) then feeling good in the morning is never going to be the outcome. Pulling on my clothes and hastily stuffing things into a bag, Ollie and I made it downstairs to check out. We said goodbye to our new friends, who incidentally looked as bad as us, and set off on our half mile walk to the van. If nothing else, that walk in the cold air smacked some life back into us. Oh and so did the litre of orange juice we shared in a gulp!

This was day two of ‘Ollie’s big birthday weekend’ and the day that we were going skiing. Perhaps our mindset could have been slightly better prepared but no amount of hangover could stop our impending excitement. 

We were going up to the ski field in The Remarkables as not only are those mountains closet to Queenstown but they also have a quieter beginners area that we thought might be quite appropriate for us. A coach took us up the mountain on a forty minute drive that literally went ‘all round the mountain’. I don’t get motion sickness normally but my life did I feel absolutely hideous on that bus journey. Every part of my being shone green as I held my teeth as tightly together as I could, keeping my head firmly facing forwards and praying I wouldn’t throw up on the person opposite me. I don’t like going up windy mountain roads any time, so feeling a little sore from the night before as well just escalated my ordeal by one hundred times! There is nothing pleasant about being thousands of feet high on a road with no barrier in a coach that is as wide as the gravel. It’s the ‘Italian Job’ waiting to happen. I’ve always though so, every time I am in that situation. I can just about manage being in our van on those mountain roads but even then I get petrified. So yeah, not the most magical start to our skiing adventure!

But then we reached the top. Off the bus I instantly felt better and jumped on the magic carpet (not nearly as magic as it sounds, just a travalator in the snow) to go and collect our gear. Having pre ordered our skis and boots for hire we were able to go straight into the main building and pick them up without having to queue. And not having to queue is always a bonus! We got fitted and a very lovely girl got me into my boots. Ollie managed alright on his own but I am Amy. Next we were given our skis and then left to get on with it! After seeking advice the day before about what ability level we should be in (and finding out that ability level was a total 0 and we were in the mega beginners bracket) we had booked ourselves in for two lessons with the complete novice instructor. I think Ollie and I had secretly hoped we could skip that level and move on to something less ‘uncool’ but we soon learned that with skiing, there is no ‘skipping’ when you’ve never even touched a set of skis before, let alone got on them!

So with an hour to wait before our first lesson we went and found a coffee. In doing this we made it obvious to everyone within a fifty meter radius fully aware of just how ‘fresh’ we were to skiing as we carried our skis up a long flight of stairs into the cafe area with us. Apparently you were supposed to leave them outside in the ‘designated area’ but we hadn’t known this! Glad to be back outside we waited by the ‘Level 1’ (at least it wasn’t called Level 0) sign for our group to assemble. During this time Ollie and I were unable to wait and so put on our skis and went for a slide which consisted of shuffling about thirty centimeters in one direction, having massive difficulty trying to turn around and in doing so knocking other people and shuffling back again. And this was all on a flat surface.

Eventually a guy in a red jacket showed up and started ordering us all about so we guessed he must have been one of the instructors. He immediately told us we should be holding our skis, not wearing them, and there was a particularly awkward moment where Ollie and I realised we were the only ones who had ours on and had to take them off in front of the others in our group like two naughty kids. It was even worse for me because I couldn’t make mine unclip and so with a helpless mumble of ‘I’ve never taken a pair of skis off before’, the guy had to do it for me. Not a great start.

A girl glided effortlessly across and said hi. She was to be the ‘beginners’ instructor. Leading us all down a fairly steep slope, us all clambering and sliding behind her in our boots looking like the kind of people who are new at something and who’d I’d chuckle at if I was a lot better, she finally got us all in a semi circle at the bottom of the gentlest ski slope I’ve ever seen. On a side note, if you’ve never tried to walk in a pair of ski boots I suggest you try for a laugh. It has to be the most annoying and tiring form of walking known to man! Anyway. After a few preliminary exercises of practicing moving in a circle with just one ski on and then swapping to the other foot (unfortunately I didn’t practice with my other foot as I got confused with what we were doing and had got separated from Ollie so couldn’t ask him what I had missed the girl saying because I was watching with glee as a parent fell over on his child, who was fine) we got down to the less humiliating and far more interesting stuff. Actually trying to ski! 

First off we learned to stop. Or rather everyone else learned to stop and I learned to slow down a bit. The girl tried hard to teach me but I suppose in order to stop fully you have to want to and deep down I just wasn’t convicted enough as really I wanted to keep going because it was fun. But after a few runs down the slope, well pretend slope, I could do a pretty good impression of a skier who was coming to a hault. That mastered we moved on to turning and the bigger slope. This area was far more fun and you could actually build up a bit of speed. However it wasn’t until the next day when Ollie and I were discussing what we had learned from the lessons that I found out the whole purpose of the girls teaching had been about slowing down and gaining total control over the skis. And there was me thinking we were learning how to stay safe whilst getting to the bottom as fast as possible. Not quite sure how I missed the correct information there.

By the end of the first lesson we were loving the whole ‘skiing thing’ and stayed on the slope to practice for a bit longer. After a short rest we got back out there to enjoy our freedom before the afternoon session. Feeling over confident as we approached the slope down to the starter area I watch as Ollie skied very under control and on balance down the slope and slalomed his way through the practice posts. I followed and did so in the most out of control, speediest and reckless way one could ever imagine, roaring my way to the end of the snow trying desperately to ‘make a wedge’ and stop myself. It’s a miracle no children were lost in the run! Speaking of children. it was insane how good some of the little kids on the mountain were. Children about five years old were coming down the real slopes, utterly fearless, and others who were still learning glided about without poles making their ‘pizzas’ like miniature pros! It was enough to bring back my sickness from the morning I tell you!

The afternoon session began with a recap and me saying hi to people I had smacked into and run down a few hours previously. Most of the group had forgiven me though I think. Or they were just too polite not to smile. Our instructor got us to do some jumping, get better a turning (or try to) and to improve our stance. I was concentrating so hard that the time flew past and soon it was time to say thank you and goodbye. She told us that we had been the best Level 1 group she’d ever had and that we were far beyond where first timers usually are. We even got told we could skip straight to level 3 next time and maybe even get a go on the proper ski fields. Well. I say we, she was looking at Ollie and certainly not me. He was a little disappointed in me but I did try my best. So after she left us Ollie got me back up to the steepest entrance slope and began to put me through his rigorous ‘get better quick Amy so we can do more next time’ regime. 

But I was still out of control. And why he was surprised about that I don’t know. I am always out of control in general. There was even one horrific point were I got a third of the way down the slope, panicked because there were people I was going to hit and decided the best course of action would be to just fall smack onto my bum. This turned out not to be the correct thing to do because I then got totally stuck and couldn’t get back. A very nice older gentleman from our group came sliding to my aid and eventually got me back on my feet. He had been watching me with some amusement from the safety of the flat area. In the end I had to tell Ollie I had had enough for one day and that we had to give the skis back. The place was also closing and the snow had turned to ice so it was a good time to drag Ollie away from his new found love. My thighs were sore from falling over three times too. I wish I had had three spectacular falls but two had been while I was literally standing still.

Back in our trainers we felt very odd to be walking with such ease and after selecting a photograph taken by the official photographer that summed up our day (it was me crashing into Ollie) we caught the coach back down. It had been an awesome day up the mountain and a perfect introduction to our new hobby. And it will be our hobby. Ollie has insisted. 

* * * *

We checked into our little hotel on a hill overlooking Queenstown and dragged our ski battered bodies to our room. As I sunk into a boiling hot bath I was very glad we had decided to add the hotel to Ollie’s birthday weekend. We had a great annex room at the top of the building that had beams running through it and a spectacular view overlooking the town and Lake Wakatipu. It was nice to be able to stand up straight in more than a square meter of space and to have a real bed to sleep in. It was also very wonderful to put fresh clothes on that weren’t intended for a mountain walk. 

Ollie and I picked a tiny restaurant called ‘Les Alpes’ to have dinner in and if anyone is ever in Q Town then I would definitely recommend eating there, the food was immense! The owners and waiting staff were all french and the atmosphere was very cosy. The service was impeccable which I very much appreciated as to me it is as important as the food! We were both in the mood for rich food and that is exactly what we got. Everything was so yummy! As we were in France we had a French wine which was as heavy as I had hoped for and sent me into a lovely warm cosy place. By the time we had finished our meal it was late. Back in the cold we walked back to our hotel. The best way to end our day and celebrate Oliver’s quarter of a century.

Sunday morning we woke late having missed the alarm that didn’t go off because I didn’t set it right and ran down to catch the end of breakfast. We had planned to leave Queenstown and head down to Te Anau but unable to tear ourselves away from our new favourite mountain town we stayed another day. We visited an underwater viewing place where we watched fish, eels and diving ducks messing about in the lake, we cleared our heads of the wine with coffee and walked around the very lovely town. And then as one last ‘birthday treat’ we went and watched ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. Even though it was a tiny cinema and the screen was far from great, we still though the film was immense (all three hours of it!), and as with all super movies, couldn’t stop talking about it four hours afterwards. As it was getting dark we pulled out of Queenstown. Trying not to look behind us and wish we were staying longer, we said goodbye and began our journey south.

31/7/12