Day 16: Queenstown
May 4th, 2009 by Dylan
Queenstown and the surrounding area rocks and is ridiculously beautiful. The entire area feels like one massive national park. It is a bit trendier than I expected, with lots of people straight out of high school or college tramping around New Zealand.
I began my first full-day (April 14, 2009) in Queenstown with a great breakfast cooked by the owner at the wonderful Dairy Private Luxury Hotel . I then embarked on a bike ride through Queenstown and along the lake. Riding a bike on the opposite side of the road is even more unnatural than driving on the wrong side, because every time you hear a car coming, your natural instinct is to veer right, which of course is right into traffic when riding on the left side!
Queenstown is the adventure capital of the world, including the place where Bungee Jumping was invented. As part of this trip, I’ve been trying new things and in general trying to break myself out of stubborn ways. For example, in Japan and China and Korea, I pretty much ate anything that was presented to me and wasn’t horribly cruel to animals. I found for example that I do like well-prepared sushi. So, I didn’t want to freak anyone out, but I tried the bungee jump since it was invented in Queenstown. Sadly, it was pretty anti-climactic. I wasn’t particularly nervous, and it was over pretty quickly. The free-falling was an interesting sensation, but it’s not something I’d likely do again as it’s just way overrated in my opinion.
Given the relaxing beauty of Queenstown, for the rest of the day, I mostly caught up on work and explored the cafes of Queenstown, prior to an excellent Dojo Beer and dinner event:
We have several attendees from the Dunedin that made the drive over, and a couple of local web developers as well. In typical New Zealand style, we started with a drink or two at a tapas pub with a waterfront view, then had a nice dinner, and then crawled to a few bars and pubs for the rest of the evening. It was really great to meet people with an interest in Dojo and just great people all around.