Queenstown, New Zealand

On Monday, March 17 our planned trip for New Zealand really began. We flew from Christchurch to Queenstown in what most be one of the world's shortest flights. Although it was barely more than half an hour Air New Zealand managed to feed us an entire meal (helpful for the tight budget) and play us the weirdest safety video I've ever seen. Jaz and I sat in bewilderment as sport's illustrated swimsuit models and Maori men demonstrated how to put on life jackets while having a grand time on some edenic island. We weren't sure whether to cry with laughter or be very offended. Either way it was certainly memorable!

Once in Queenstown, we rented our car. It is both huge and in some Chinese language. 

Jasmine packing up our car for the first time.

So far he has been a great car with the small exceptions that the radio does not work, it sometimes will try to tell us things in Chinese, and whenever I drive over 110km/hr it will show us a picture of itself. I'm assuming it wants praise for going so fast? It has fully embraced the Asian selfie though. The good news is that whenever it gets too cold to sleep in our tent, we can always snuggle up inside the car. It is very roomy! 

We didn't have much time to explore Queenstown. It was very reminiscent of Whistler to me. Most of our time was spent madly preparing for our first tramp on the Routeburn track. We did begun our rule of no hotels/hostels and spent the night by the lake in a lovely DOC campsite.