Queenstown: Embodiment of Beauty 5

The City of Queenstown

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If so, then what we beheld as we approached Queenstown New Zealand was a thing of pure beauty. Humpty and I spent our entire trip asking each other what our favorite place was, where we think we could live (which had two versions, one with unlimited funds and one with limited funds), and what the most beautiful place was. Well, after we turned the corner while on Crown Range Road and saw this approach to Queenstown, I knew the answer to at least two of those questions.

Pics taken while approaching Queenstown. I just couldn’t decide which ones to include…

Best word to describe the approach to Queenstown? Giddy. However, words cannot adequately describe the beauty of what we saw. It looked like a fairytale. And not only that, after the initial approach, we even saw a herd of reindeer. It was the first time for us to see real reindeer. I kept looking over at Humpty, saying, “Are you kidding me? Is this place for real?” Driving became a bit of a challenge as I was struggling to take in the scenery and keep our little Nissan Sunny from veering off the winding roads. At one point, though, I saw a sign that did almost make me veer off: wineries. Again, the words that came out were, “Are you kidding me? They have wineries here too??”

Reindeer! Humpty scared them off while trying to take her millionth video.

As we made it to our residence for the next few evenings, I was having a hard time prioritizing. There were so many things we wanted to do while in Queenstown: wineries, biking, driving around, drinking, eating, perhaps running, taking lots of photographs, kayaking (well, perhaps just me as Humpty was still reeling from the last kayak trip, and perhaps a little more drinking. We stayed at this awesome centrally located hotel called Pounamu Apartments; it was clean, tastefully decorated and walking distance to the restaurants.

The harbor in downtown Queenstown at sunset

Do you like to ski? Well, Queenstown is the main ski resort in New Zealand for Kiwis and a pretty big ski destination for folks in Australia too. Of course, we came just as summer was beginning so no skiing for us. But surprisingly, the town still had some bustle to it. As a side note, one of the best parts of a ski town in my opinion is the ample bars and great beer – and Queenstown was no exception. One night, Humpty and I even did a bit of a pub crawl. Not quite the ones I have done in my past, but nothing to sneeze at either.

But back to what we actually ended up doing. As we were trying to organize ourselves, I spotted a flyer for a photography safari. Since the two-day class I took in Thailand, I was increasingly obsessed with improving the quality of photographs I was taking. Getting a chance to do that in what was quickly becoming my favorite spot on the tour so far was something I could not pass up and so I strong armed Humpty into letting me take a half day class.

I have to say, if you enjoy landscape photography, know a little about what you are doing but realize that you could use more guidance, and want to do this all in Queenstown, definitely sign up for this tour. It was one of my overall trip highlights. I got the chance to visit a few sights: Lake Wakatipu and trying to capture mountains and water while keeping it interesting, the trees past Glenorchy and trying to make sense of depth of field within a forest, and finally a small waterfall and experimenting with both slow shutter speeds for the milky effect as well as fast shutter speed to capture water droplets stopped in time.

Most important for me though was learning to pay more attention to composition – making sure the area captured in the photograph contains all of what you want to communicate to the viewer and nothing else, and to have the viewer understand the image you are trying to communicate to them. Even something as simple as spending a second before you press the button to take a photo to say to yourself, “What is it that I want the viewer to see in this particular image?” is critical, useful, simple, and effective.

Here is a sampling of pictures taken during the photo safari – looking back at them, so many of the mistakes the instructor highlighted are obvious but at least I had fun.

After rejoining Humpty, we spent time driving around the area. We drove along the coast of Lake Wakatipu, attempting to keep the car on the road while taking in the views. Lake Wakatipu is surrounded by mountains and also has the one thing I disliked about Queenstown: sandflies. In fact, those pesky little flies, which bite and leave a mark, not unlike mosquitoes, provide a bit of perspective on Queenstown – my photography instructor told me that one of the sayings of Queenstown is that the sandflies exist so that everyone that visits Queenstown does not stay. I personally think it would take a bit more than that to keep me away.

We also drove to Glenorchy, which was a bit of a let down compared to Queenstown. There are several Lord of the Rings sites in Glenorchy but after the Wellington trip, we thought another Lord of the Rings tour would be a bit excessive. I then decided to go back to the initial viewpoint from our arrival to Queenstown to take some more photos. Having taken the photography course, I was anxious to return and snap a few photos with my newfound photo knowledge.

View of Lake Wakatipu while driving to Glenorchy

Aerial views of Queenstown offer a fantastic way to see the town and so we opted to dine at the Skyline restaurant, complete with a gondola ride to the top. It was definitely a bit touristy and the food was nothing special (since it was buffet style, it was quite plentiful) but it was the views of Queenstown Garden, Lake Wakatipu, and the mountains that made it great.

Another highlight was having lunch at the Amisfield winery. It was a bit indulgent on our part since it was above our budget but the food was excellent, the sunny day was beautiful and the wines were decent—couldn’t ask for anything more.

Magnificent view of Queenstown’s winding roads

For me, it was no question: Queenstown was my favorite destination of the trip and also the most beautiful. I think living in a ski town might be a bit boring but I thought Queenstown was probably one of the more livable ski towns for me. Humpty still needs a big city – so perhaps if we could get rid of those sandflies in Queenstown…