Day 330: BeePaw Jim Arrives! — Holy Crap Queenstown is Gorgeous
Getaway Day in Wellington.
Breakfast was slammed at Hippopotamus. There were no tables available — classic QT! — so we sat in the lounge area and ate off the cocktail tables.
We had a good view of Welly’s Sunday morning farmers market across the street.
We’ve become so efficient at packing our bags, yet today was a little more frazzled than usual because we haven’t packed for a plane in a while. The back of the SUV is an invitation to collect crap you don’t need.
Last night Margaret asked the QT staff about shipping a bag of stuff home to DC. Almost every decent hotel will handle this for guests. Unsurprisingly, at the QT it was like no guest had ever made this request before. After a long wait and an apparent conversation with the manager, the answer was, “yes, we can do this.”
Margaret packed the bag, and documented the inventory, mailing address, contact info, etc as she’s done a dozen or so times on this trip. But as we were checking out the staff changed their minds. “Sorry, this isn’t something we offer.”
The manager who was asked last night was actually at the front desk and he came up with some reason why they couldn’t ship it— something about customs. We will laugh for a while about the service at this place. Probably the worst of the year.
So we were unexpectedly carrying another bag. In retrospect, I think it’s a good thing we didn’t hand this off to the QT staff — would have never seen this stuff again.
We breezed through the Wellington airport. There is a cool dragon play space near the bag check area so kids are entertained while grownups check in and drop bags.
It was a short yet bumpy flight. The landing in particular was nuts — clouds, fog, wind — we were bouncing all over the place but eventually hit the ground. We walked through pouring rain into the terminal.
We weren’t on the ground 10 minutes and we ran into BeePaw Jim!
We didn’t even expect to see him at the airport — he had his own ride booked.
We passed this sign on our way to pick up our rental car.
We then stopped by the grocery store (Countdown Queenstown!) and then made our way to our apartment, which is a couple blocks from where Jim is staying — at the QT! (No reports yet on terrible service. We’re expecting it’s only the Wellington property, which was recently taken over from another brand.)
After squeezing our Toyota Highlander through some suuuper narrow driveways we finally got to our 3rd floor apartment at the Lakefront Apartments. It’s a cozy 2BR 2 bath with a balcony overlooking Lake Wakatipu. The apartment is nice but OMG the views are insane.
Jim came over and he brought Sees chocolates from his layover in San Fran! Each kid got a box. They couldn’t contain their excitement. The grownups had beer / wine and some snacks on the balcony while the kids came in and out of the apartment showing BeePaw everything they’ve collected and kept in their mini backpacks.
Everyone says Queenstown is gorgeous and it still manages to surpass expectations. All at once you see the deep blue lake, striking blue skies with cartoon white clouds, ominous grey clouds with visible sideways rain, snow capped peaks, and soaring pines.
And then, as we walked out to dinner, Queenstown flexed its muscles with a rainbow! Just showing off at this point.
We hit Public Kitchen and Bar (a Phil Sarin recommendation) for dinner. There was a little pebble beach about 40 yards away from the restaurant. James and Willa went to play there by themselves before the food arrived. We could see them through a window but they couldn’t really see us.
One not-so-positive byproduct of this year is that since we’ve all been so close, often hand-in-hand in chaotic, foreign cities that Willa and James have both probably become more clingy rather than less. We hope and expect this is a temporary thing and eventually they will feel more confident and independent from this experience. But either way, we were pleasantly surprised to see them being that independent this evening.
It was a slow stroll back to the apartment. We skipped some rocks on the beach, took a few pics and marveled at the light and the views.
I’ve decided I can put my phone away for two weeks. Every time I try to take a picture both Margaret *and* Jim are taking one at the same time.
