Day 170

It was time to leave Queenstown. What a beautiful little town. Sure, it was somewhat overrun with backpackers and tourists from every corner of the earth (or apparently Western Europe, at least) I really enjoyed it.

Part of that was the crew at Butterfli Lodge. I’m a big believe that if you do your research into where you’re staying, you’ll enjoy it even more. Such was the case. I said my goodbyes and got picked up by the airport shuttle at around 11.30 am. Turns out we had some time to kill, so the drivers (which I take to be good friends) took me to one of the highest points in Queenstown that you can reach by car and not by some winged creature.

The Queenstown airport, while not huge, is really quite pretty. So was, in fact, the subsequent flight to Christchurch. I wished I had booked a window seat – it was like being on my own private jet – we had the pilot narrating the sights to see.

From Christchurch, after enjoying my 15 minutes of free internet in the terminal (Greater Toronto Airports Authority, are you listening?) it was off to Wellington and then shuttled into the city to get to my backpackers.

Now, let’s get one thing straight. “Backpackers” is a fancy way of saying “hostel”. It’s not the highest class accommodation (frankly, far from it) but I was able to book a single room for a small reasonable premium. I don’t want anyone to get the idea that I’m trying to play super-hermit; however, I do like my space. Don’t worry, I’ll be sharing rooms in Australia when the costs go up just that bit more…

Wellington has a nice downtown pedestrianized shopping arcade where I found a man from France selling crepes. I swear I am not making this up. After buying one I also noticed the poster – of all things there was a French film festival going on! It was going to be a toss-up between that and a Fringe Festival show.

To paraphrase TV Burp’s Harry Hill: “Well, I like fringe theatre, but I also like French films. But which one is better? There’s only one way to find out - FIGHT!”

Cheers,
Vick.