George’s 50th, Fat Freddy’s Drop, and Brady’s Revenge

Queenstown, New Zealand
45.0312°S, 168.6626°E 

It didn’t take long for us to fall in love with Queenstown.

The Airbnb we rented along with Sarah’s sisters Kerry and Erin, and her boyfriend Chris, was located a half mile up a steep hill overlooking downtown Queenstown. Because of how high up our apartment was, the views of Lake Wakatipu were amazing, even on cloudy days.

The weather in Queenstown can be very unpredictable. In the summer it often jumps from the 50’s to the 80’s and back to the 50’s in one day, sometimes within a matter of hours. For most of the trip we wore shirts and t-shirts, but always made sure to have a sweatshirt or light jacket with us.

Our first Saturday in New Zealand was spent exploring downtown Queenstown and preparing for George’s party that night. But before any of that, we had to participate in some type of adrenaline-inducing activity here in New Zealand’s adventure capital. We decided on the Shotover Jet, a 15-minute jetboat ride through the canyons of the Shotover River just outside Queenstown.

Jetboats are specially designed to go very fast in shallow waters while being able to turn on a dime. The Shotover jetboats can go up to 55 mph as they traverse the winding river canyons. They are even able to do complete 360° turns in very narrow areas.

We weren’t able to take any videos on the tour, but this clip provides a good sense of how fast and how close to the rocks these powerful little boats go. I loved it but Sarah wasn’t that crazy about the close calls with the rock walls of the river. She let me know afterwards that jetboating “isn’t my jam,” but at least she was smiling in the pictures!

That night, we headed to Bob’s Cove, an area on Lake Wakatipu about 15 minutes outside of Queenstown. George and his wife Simone live on a beautiful property here with their two kids. This was where George’s 50th was held.

Fat Freddy

After an amazing (and long!) night of food and drinks at the party, we had a relaxing and lazy Sunday morning before heading off in the afternoon to the Queenstown Events Centre, an outdoor amphitheatre just a few minutes away from the airport. Fat Freddy’s Drop, a popular New Zealand band with an eclectic sound that mixes funk, reggae and even a bit of techno, put on an awesome and energetic show.

We sat up on a hill at the concert with our large group of adults as the kids ran around and played in the massive field surrounding the stage. The venue was tucked into the hills surrounding Queenstown, which made for a pretty incredible place to see a concert.

Super Bowl Monday

Because of the time difference between the U.S. and New Zealand, the Super Bowl was televised here early Monday afternoon. We headed to a downtown Texas-themed bar called Lone Star to watch the game. In all, there were more than 30 Americans visiting as part of our group, many of them from New England and die-hard Patriots fans.

We arrived late morning to the bar and since it was a Monday and a New Zealand holiday, we basically had the entire bar to ourselves. Given the drama and intensity of the game this was definitely a good thing (i.e., there were a lot of emotional ups and downs for Pats fans…actually, downs then ups). It was pretty cool to see one of the best Super Bowls of all time surrounded by fans of the team that won, in one of the most beautiful countries in the world. This clip of the Pat’s overtime touchdown probably best summarizes the energy that day in the bar.

Coming off the high of the Patriot’s win, I joined several of the adults and kids and headed around the corner to a local rugby pitch to get a game of touch football going in the rain. Queenstown – and New Zealand in general – has some of the greenest playing fields I’ve ever seen, it was like we were playing our pickup football game on a high-end golf course.

On our last night in Queenstown we went on a lake cruise with most of the gang that was over for George’s birthday. Most of our large group was heading back home the next morning, so we said goodbye to Sarah’s family and our new friends, promising to stay in touch and relive our week in Queenstown sometime soon!

Sarah, Erin, Chris and I woke up on our last day in Queenstown and headed downtown to catch a bus to our final adventure in New Zealand’s adventure capital – kayaking. We were taken to a spot that was about a 45 minute drive from Queenstown, in the shadow of Mount Creighton on Lake Wakatipu.

We spent several hours kayaking around Pig and Pigeon islands. The winds picked up on the latter half of our trip so we definitely got a good workout navigating our kayaks against the waves. Fortunately, our guide created a mini sail for the four kayaks on our tour, and we all linked up and were able to sail much of the way back to shore.

After dropping Chris and Erin off a the airport, Sarah and I headed a few miles down the road to pick up our home for the next 10 days.

More of our pictures from Queenstown….