New Zealand Road Trip / South Island / Day 3 : Queenstown and Fiordland

Saturday 7th April, 2012

Along the lake and a glimpse of the Fiordland

State Highway 6 and State Highway 94; 282 km

The journey ahead, despite being with an incredible destination at the end, was not quite satisfyingly exciting! I wasn't sure if that was because of the high excitement from seeing the glaciers (albeit not from a satisfyingly close distance) yesterday. But since it was not a very long journey to make, we pressed on.


At eight-thirty in the morning, the sun was already up, nice, bright and quite warm. After enjoying the view of the very calm Lake Dunstan, we drove towards Queenstown, a city that I have always wanted to visit, said to be picture perfect. I was again wishing I really know how to take great pictures, I might be able to produce my own travel postcards from this visit to Queenstown.

Along the road just as we left Cromwell

Two hours on, we reached the world renown adventure city of Queenstown, nestled on the shore of stunning Lake Wakatipu. We took a break to walk around the city centre, and decided that no amount of hours was enough to enjoy the city that day. This city would also be great to be seen covered in snow, so we agreed that we will have to come back and do a proper holiday here in the future, preferable in winter. This camping trip cannot accommodate a longer stay, so we left after a couple of hours of window shopping.

Above: A bit of Queenstown, for now...

Below: Leaving Queenstown

About 40 minutes drive along the lake, we arrived in Kingston, and had a quick stop to see the vintage steam train, The Kingston Flyer. This was also only for a brief look, then it was time for lunch. Another sandwich lunch at the beautiful surrounding of the southern end of Lake Wakatipu.

The Kingston Flyer, ready to go. For more information, visit the official site.

The next part of the journey, with the view of the lake ended as we left Kingston, was more or less a blur, with me going in and out of my sleep. Fifteen minutes after three in the afternoon we arrived in Te Anau, and after stocking up our little fridge we went to our camping site where we will be spending the night. 


It was a bit of a disappointment when we got there. The lady at the counter was a bit rude when we asked for a site that faced the setting sun, overlooking a lake. She told us that the requested site was for "tourist" and that she would require an additional charges. I was wondering what did she meant by "tourist" and she said, "its for campers who did not make the booking online!" I had a feeling that she thought we were too stingy to pay the additional NZ$4.00 for the site. 


I asked her about the free internet usage that was included in our booking, and she gave me some sort of internet card with some credit value in it. When I asked her if we can use the facility on more than one devices, she said in a very unfriendly way that she didn't care how we intend to use the internet. I just thought that she just didn't have a clue that some travellers, even those going around in a funny looking little van, do have their Macbook, iPad and iPhone with them to access the internet! How rude!


I am very tempted to name the camping site here, but for now I will leave it at this, if anyone would like to know the details, do let me know. Another disappointment at this camping site was the kitchen facility. It was there, yes but it was not properly maintained with the best interest of client in mind. The picture of the barbecue below is just a small part of what I found. 

The late afternoon sun seem to help a bit with the situation and despite not being very happy with the camping site, I found myself cooling it down by soaking up the last bit of the heat from the sun. I was determined that that was just one of the challenges that you would have to face when you leave all the comfort of a hotel far behind when you travel. The best thing to do was to sleep it over and try to get as much rest as possible for more adventure tomorrow.