My first impressions of Queenstown was that it was kind of like Whistler but with better burgers.
Is a very touristy town obviously built to take advantage of the wonderful playground that nature has provided.
And damn Fergburgers are good.
We went up the gondola to check out the view and at first it was freezing, we were even sleeted on so we went in for a coffee. Ten minutes later we went out to find all the clouds had cleared and the sun was out! This was pretty much how the weather behaved for the two days we were there.
I was hoping for some decent nightlife but I guess either we didn’t look hard enough or week nights in autumn aren’t all that popular. I’m going with the latter.
We did however discover some delicious food such as Ferburger and the Vudu Cafe.
We checked out Gibbston Valley Winery and Cheesery, the cheesery was a surprise much to our delight! We ended up taking home 5 blocks of cheese. The blue and their softest white were absolutely divine.
The winery tour itself was actually really interesting. Theirs are the oldest in the area and they have opted to stay small and boutique. In the deepest I frosts in winter they actually hire a helicopter to hover above and keep the frost off!
The man who built the winery was incredibly smart, using the geology of the land to find the perfect spot to grow Pinot and a radiating rock on the side to generate heat. He used this same rock to drill (he actually blew it up) into and create a cave that self regulates to keep the perfect temperature for storing the barrels of wine year round.
Wine was delightful, especially the Pinot noir and the Riesling.
Back in our lovely three storey, two bedroom apartment we kept to our tradition and finished off a lovely bottle of Moët, the 5 blocks of cheese, 4 dozen oysters (we accidentally bought 2 doz at the same time) and a cigar for Dave! Perfection. Evidently not enough as we ended up at Fergbakery for a ridiculous amount of desserts. Ommm.
