Queenstown

 

                As many of you reading this might know May long weekend is probably the biggest time of year for all young Cloverdalians whether it is to take part in our world famous rodeo or take the weekend to go camping in the nearby wilderness. Well as the weeks approached this fateful weekend and I had yet to make a firm decision on what exactly the future had in store for me the Rodeo and camping with friends became more and more of a feasible option. At this point most of you probably have noticed I was not there nor did I go on a venture into the Canadian wilderness. Nope this time, thanks to some persuasion from Brian and Ranch, I have resisted the great calling of the Cloverdale Rodeo and have boarded a flight 3 hours to the east to the small New Zealand town of Queenstown and continuing the cooking dream. For as long as I can remember the boys and I have always talked about taking a year off and being a ski bum living the dream on a seasons pass, zero dollars, beautiful ski bunnies, and of course the fresh pow. Now as many of you have probably seen from my Facebook photos that I have been posting this place is visually stunning and truly may be the adventure capital of the world. I have hiked and took more pictures in the last five days then I have taken in the entire seven months since I left home. Queenstown has been an absolute dream and having a friend to do the hikes and fun things with just makes it that much better. Yesterday Brian and I decided that we would like to see the top of the skyline viewing platform just above Queenstown via a short gondola ride for $40 or, as we did, you can take an hour long hike up to the top and be treated with some amazing views and along the way have the chance for Brian to satisfy his addiction for time lapses. Once at the top you are treated to an absolutely stunning views whether it be of the lake surrounding Queenstown or off the side a of stunning gorge and Queenstown hill with the peaks of New Zealand’s mountains as backdrop, and we did it all for free! Free is going to quickly become a common theme in his blog from now on as I have now managed to burn through almost all of the money that I had earned working up north last year and as work doesn’t start until the eighth of June it means being cheap. So in the spirit of cheap and free Brian and I decided today after seeing Queenstown from the sky yesterday that we would walk around the point of the Queenstown Gardens and see what the other bay had in store for us. Well after walking over and around we found ourselves walking on the Queenstown trail towards the next town over, Frankton, only a five kilometer trip which we thought we had nothing else planned so why not. Once we had got to the Frankton Marina we saw a sign for the Kawaura River Bridge and Falls. Well at this point we had already walked almost 7km so why not walk another 2km to this bridge and see these so called falls. Once getting to the bridge, which did offer some amazing views, we were not convinced that this small area of rushing water was these ‘falls’ we were promised so we continued on down the side of this valley road. After a short 4 or so kilometer walk and a little foraging from a roadside apple tree we found ourselves in a scene from Lord of The Rings; long clear fields filled with potatoes and others littered with deer were bordered on either sides by towering mountains. After following our map app to where it said we would find our long sought ‘falls’ we were greeted by someone’s private property and forced to turn our slightly disappointed selves around and back in the direction of a warm meal. Even after taking this eleven kilometer journey to what ended in someone’s house and Advanced Tree Farm business instead of the promised ‘falls’ I would never have done anything different. Just at having the first chance at not following someone else’s tracks and wandering where we knew nought what was ahead of us we got to see and experience some things that you don’t get by hoping on an expensive tour bus and going to see the same mountain or cliff that hundreds of others are going to see that same day and to experience the true sound of silence after listening to the constant hustle and bustle of city life for almost seven months I felt at peace and knew this was the place on my travels where I was meant to be.
                                              Forever and Always, Tanner  (Basically Anthony Bourdain)