Queenstown for (octogenarian) Beginners: A Farewell to Travel.

[Human]

I am writing this Trip Report for me (and my family), to remember what may well be my mother’s final overseas trip.

She is in her mid-eighties, having had an incredible life … a life worthy of a book, in fact! She spent her childhood in a war zone, a witness to terrorism. She remembers tanks driving down her street. She was told by the tanks’ occupants: this is no longer your house. This is no longer your country. Leave now or be shot.

At age seven, she became a refugee.

Through an incredible series of events, she overcame another obstacle: the White Australia policy. A one-off exception was made, and her family was allowed in. They came by boat, with nothing except what was in their suitcases.

Fast-forward an eventful 76 years. My mother is increasingly frail, but proud. She is proud to call Australia home, grateful beyond words for the opportunities and freedoms she has experienced – but still passionately advocating for the country of her birth.

Her last overseas trip was in 2018; soon afterward she announced that she would not travel again.

But earlier this year the unexpected happened. She called me: she was too old, she said, to travel to an unknown destination by herself, but she was interested … would I take her to New Zealand for one last overseas trip?

“I’d be happy to do that for you, Mum!”

She didn’t want to move around. She wanted a base – to sleep in the same bed every night (I did try to push back a little on that, but she was insistent). Her friends and family who had been to NZ raved about the South Island, about the scenery, the people, the lakes, the wildlife … and certain culinary establishments as well …

“Hmm. Queenstown seems to fit the bill?”

This will be my seventh visit to Queenstown and her first. But for the first time, I’ve had to plan a trip through the eyes of an octogenarian non-traveller who wants (within reason) to maximise experiencing, but to minimise travelling. I’ve had to organise experiences for someone who can’t walk far, and who can’t climb hills, and who needs time to recover. Neither of us have huge amounts of money. My mother does not have a huge amount of energy. What she does have, in spades, is curiosity. No lounging about in the luxury of a sterile resort or cruise-ship for her!

Feel free to tag along for what will surely be a slow-paced and (I hope) predictable holiday.

But more than anything I want it to be an experience my mother will love.

She deserves it.

 

[VPS]

Of course we are tagging along.

 

[sanne]

Very much looking forward to your report. A wonderful thing to do for your mother. My husband and I ( he is close to your mothers age) are looking at doing something similar in Queenstown with my son and his wife. After many years travelling round the world we now are exploring closer to home and necessity means we’re having to do it differently.

 

[moa999]

Sounds great.
I'm assuming some gondolas, lots of driving.
And not much AJ Hackett or jetboats.

 

[n7of9]

I'd take my mum on every trip with me if she agreed to it. I only convinced her on Bali, but she uses "can't leave the cat" as an excuse so I don't want to push too much, there may be other reasons she doesn't want to discuss.

My mum too had to flee her country because her father was a communist - not a suspected commie, an actual one in hiding from German troops during WW2, and then the Greek Junta in the late 60's. But we came here on Qantas after the Whitlam government liberated Australia (mods, please don't slap me for the political comment, sometimes history should be discussed).

I tried to figure out where your mum was born using "tanks" and "white Australia policy" as clues, and sadly, came up with too many options

 

[VPS]

I am writing this Trip Report for me (and my family), to remember what may well be my mother’s final overseas trip.

She is in her mid-eighties, having had an incredible life … a life worthy of a book, in fact! She spent her childhood in a war zone, a witness to terrorism. She remembers tanks driving down her street. She was told by the tanks’ occupants: this is no longer your house. This is no longer your country. Leave now or be shot.

At age seven, she became a refugee.

Through an incredible series of events, she overcame another obstacle: the White Australia policy. A one-off exception was made, and her family was allowed in. They came by boat, with nothing except what was in their suitcases.

Fast-forward an eventful 76 years. My mother is increasingly frail, but proud. She is proud to call Australia home, grateful beyond words for the opportunities and freedoms she has experienced – but still passionately advocating for the country of her birth.

Her last overseas trip was in 2018; soon afterward she announced that she would not travel again.

But earlier this year the unexpected happened. She called me: she was too old, she said, to travel to an unknown destination by herself, but she was interested … would I take her to New Zealand for one last overseas trip?

“I’d be happy to do that for you, Mum!”

She didn’t want to move around. She wanted a base – to sleep in the same bed every night (I did try to push back a little on that, but she was insistent). Her friends and family who had been to NZ raved about the South Island, about the scenery, the people, the lakes, the wildlife … and certain culinary establishments as well …

“Hmm. Queenstown seems to fit the bill?”

This will be my seventh visit to Queenstown and her first. But for the first time, I’ve had to plan a trip through the eyes of an octogenarian non-traveller who wants (within reason) to maximise experiencing, but to minimise travelling. I’ve had to organise experiences for someone who can’t walk far, and who can’t climb hills, and who needs time to recover. Neither of us have huge amounts of money. My mother does not have a huge amount of energy. What she does have, in spades, is curiosity. No lounging about in the luxury of a sterile resort or cruise-ship for her!

Feel free to tag along for what will surely be a slow-paced and (I hope) predictable holiday.

But more than anything I want it to be an experience my mother will love.

She deserves it.

Did she ever go back to her home country and were you able to go with her

 

[Human]

I flew up to Sydney yesterday but I’ll spare you a post about my VA MEL-SYD flight, except to say that it was a typical VA MEL-SYD flight. The internet worked.

So our trip began with a Didi to Sydney Airport at 5:30am, and a walk to Virgin Australia Check-In. Of course, the car dropped us of in front of check-in row “B”, and the VA check-in was row “K”. So it was quite a walk…



(During which, I reflected that I should ban myself from using the words “slow”, “slowly” or any synonyms in this TR. If I do use those words, please hold me to account…).

And then it was a long walk almost all the way back to International Departures. But we were through fairly quickly, and Security was less of a muddled schmozzle than it was when I was last here three weeks ago.

Our flight left from Gate 60, so it was another long walk. But the American Express Lounge was a well-located breakfast venue. The AmEx Lounge was crowded, but we found a seat and settled down for breakfast.

I have to say that the buffet there is underwhelming. I’ve started grading lounges, teacher-style, so I’ll give this lounge a C minus. It does the job, but only just.

 

[Human]

Our flight was VA163.


For my mother, I had secured what is (in my opinion) the best seat in Economy class: 3A. I didn’t worry about having to sit in the middle seat. The choice of the left (port) side of the plane was deliberate, as anyone who has flown into Queenstown will appreciate.

(Question: is it correct to speak of the “port” and “starboard” sides of aeroplanes, or should those terms be used exclusively of boats/ships?)

Boarding for those needing “special assistance” was called. Then, exactly twelve seconds later, priority boarding was called. Then, exactly eight seconds after that, general boarding was called. But the staff were kind, friendly and they all had smiles on their faces as they boarded us, and that covers over a multitude of sins in my book.

We settled into our seats in row 3…



Boarding ended, and we came to the happy realisation that we had an empty seat next to us.


It was a long taxi to the far, Botany Bay end of the runway, and we took off to the north and immediately turned right for the relatively short two-and-a-half-hour flight to Queenstown. On the plus side, the flight had functional internet, more-or-less all the way to Queenstown. On the minus side, minutes after leaving Australia, Foxtel Go geo-blocked me, so my fun-filled two hours of watching British Taskmaster on my iPad was not to be…


I did, as always, have a Plan B: Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos. This was highly recommended by the presenters at the writing course in Yorkshire, so I was very keen to start reading. It's certainly ... different. And thought-provoking. And I think it's important that we don't silo ourselves into only reading and hearing from people who are the same as us...


My listening on this flight was Christopher Larkin’s Hollow Night: Silksong video game soundtrack, which was highly recommended by my video-game-loving daughter. It is a seriously good soundtrack and well worth listening to.

Unsurprisingly for a VA flight with the new cabins, Economy class passengers started using the Business class toilet with impunity, and were not turned back. A couple of the Business class passengers in front of me did not look amused.

I'd deliberately put my mother in the window seat so she could enjoy the view of the Southern Alps as we descended into Queenstown. I initially thought that my plans would be thwarted by clouds:


But as the clouds cleared., my mother responded to the view in exactly the way that I thought she would.




I can never get enough of that descent...



We landed and things proceeded very smoothly. ZQN can be prone to bottlenecks and long queues when several flights arrive from Australia at once, but that was not the case this time and we breezed through Immigration and Biosecurity. The only very minor annoyance was that one bag took about 10 minutes longer than the other to turn up on the carousel.

We were in our hotel within about 20 minutes of emerging from Queenstown Airport.

 

[Human]

This is our home for the next six nights: The Novotel Queenstown Lakeside. I chose this hotel partly because I’m Accor Plus ALL Gold, but mainly because of its location. It’s a very easy walk into central Queenstown, with no hills.


It wasn’t long before we were in our rooms, which were identical.


Unforeseen issue #1:

After dropping off my bags into my room and going into my mother’s room, she told me that she couldn’t stay in her room. The bathroom contains a combination bath/shower, and she simply couldn’t safely step over the side of the bath and into the shower.


I went downstairs and explained the issue to the staff member, who immediately fetched the Duty Manager, Perica.

Perica was great. She explained that they could put my mother into an accessible room with a proper shower, but at least for the next couple of days I would have to stay in the room I had been allocated – a fair distance from my mother’s new room – until they could find a room for me that’s closer. Really, I couldn’t have expected better customer service than that.

I took my mother to her new room, which was larger…


… and with a proper shower…


My dear mother then observed the two beds and suggested that I could now share the room with her.

“Thanks so much, Mum, but don’t you want a little privacy?”

(Full disclosure: it was not my mother’s privacy that I was thinking about as I spoke these words.)

Here’s the as-yet-unconsumed “sweet treat” that the hotel provided for my mother:


We very briefly settled in, before I spent the afternoon learning an important lesson: my mother, elderly as she is, can function on three hours’ sleep better than I can…

 

[RooFlyer]

There is an amazing video of a plane descending into Queenstown, with low clouds filling the valley. As it descends into the cloud, it is facing the mountain and so will be completing the turn 'blind'. Its put me off ever flying to Queenstown.

 

[Human]

Metres from the Novotel and right on the beachfront is a cafe called The Bathhouse.



My family had eaten at The Bathhouse many times on visits to Queenstown in 2015, 2017 and 2019, and we always loved it. The food was great, the service was friendly and easygoing, and the view was (still is) spectacular.

But my daughter, visiting with her new husband during her honeymoon last year, reported that it had gone downhill badly. Recent reviews on Tripadvisor seem to back that up.

So what to do? When my mother reported that she was not interested in settling into her hotel room and that she wanted a cup of tea and a very light lunch, I thought it was worth a shot. After all, it's literally metres from the hotel, and the view really is spectacular.

We walked out to see the lake the most agitated I've seen it, with whitecaps dancing in the strong wind. The sea was angry that day my friend! (Well, the lake was mildly annoyed, at least).


(@RooFlyer I have determined that I will include that line in every TR I write from now on, in perpetuity. You're welcome.)

We entered and sat down. The view was, indeed, amazing.


The menu:


I ordered a trim flat white and my mother ordered a tea. Call me an Antipodean Coffee Snob if you want, but New Zealand is the one country in the world whose coffee is of consistently the same high quality as Australia's.



Then, intrigued, my mother and I thought we'd share a serving of "Chips, Cheese & Curry Sauce". It took quite a while for it to be served, but when it was, it did what it says on the tin...


After finishing I suggested that possibly we could head back to the Hotel for a short nap to partly compensate for our manifest lack of sleep? My mother responded that she wanted to just sit for a little while longer.

(The verdict on The Bathhouse? Definitely not the same vibe as pre-COVID. The customer service was run-of-the-mill at best. On the other hand we didn't do ourselves any favours by ordering what we did. And the coffee was pretty good.)

After a while my mother suggested that we take a walk along the beachside.




We ended up making it to the other end of Queenstown, where we did a bit of a souvenir shop crawl...





Finally we made it back to our (separate!) hotel rooms late in the afternoon -- with me marvelling all the while at how my mother could function.

But I think she's had a great afternoon.

 

[Human]

There is an amazing video of a plane descending into Queenstown, with low clouds filling the valley. As it descends into the cloud, it is facing the mountain and so will be completing the turn 'blind'. Its put me off ever flying to Queenstown.

Some things are just worth the risk!

 

[Human]

I tried to figure out where your mum was born using "tanks" and "white Australia policy" as clues, and sadly, came up with too many options

I don't want to be specific (but you can wait for my book!) because, tragically, the conflict she fled from is a conflict that's continuing today, 80 years later. People have strong opinions on either side, and I don't want to risk this TR turning into a slugfest over the merits of one side or another. As you say, political comment is prohibited on AFF!

So sadly I just want to ask readers to respect my desire to not go there more than I have. I want this TR to be a celebration of her life and to not turn into something else (or, worst case scenario, to be shut down).

Did she ever go back to her home country and were you able to go with her

She did go back, briefly, in the 1990s during a rare time of relative peace. It was obviously a very emotional time for her and she was even able to visit her old street and see (from the outside) her old childhood home, which was still there.

I was not able to go with her -- I was very recently married at the time and couldn't make it work.

 

[BriarFlyer]

Love your mum's energy and now I look forward to the book even more.

 

[jastel]

Took my mother on a trip for her 80th to see old haunts and relatives in the UK.

We all know how pedestrian friendly the cobblestones are and the tube is for the elderly, stairs everywhere, bike lanes, lack of toilets etc....things I barely think about.
I really had to slow down...I am not a sit still and have coffee guy.

There were some arguments...but you need to appreciate the time together.
Good Luck!

 

[Human]

Last night we ate dinner in the restaurant at the Novotel -- taking advantage of the final days of 50% off for Accor Plus members! In my sleep-deprived state I forgot to take photos but I had a tender and flavoursome lamb shank and my mother had a tomato soup which she also enjoyed.

This morning we gave ourselves a sleep-in (obviously!) and met for breakfast at 9:30am. The buffet was quite crowded, even at that time. The Novotel markets itself as a "midscale" hotel and I would say that the breakfast is a "midscale" buffet. The big minus is that barista coffee costs extra; the plus is that they do make eggs, omelettes and porridge to order. I ordered a porridge which they brought to my table, but then I had to get up to add a condiment to it.

They did also have a dedicated gluten-free area, and quite a large selection of Asian options.






After breakfast I had an important errand to do. But first a bit of background. I have booked three "must-dos" for this week: one today, one tomorrow, and one (the big one) on Thursday. In between I have a list of "nice-to-dos" which I haven't booked and will depend on how my mother is feeling, how much energy she has and how much rest she needs.

Top of that "nice to do" list is the Kiwi Park. I know my mother well enough to know that if she could manage it, she'd absolutely love it. It would definitely be a highlight of the week, if not the highlight. But could she manage it? It's on a slope, and involves quite a bit of walking up and down hills.

The Kiwi Park's website helpfully says that "caregivers" are welcome to drop in and check the park out before visiting with the person they're caring for. It also, very helpfully, states that caregivers get free admission. So after breakfast I left the hotel. It was a genuinely lovely 7 degrees, and as I walked I reflected that the climate of Queenstown in late September is really just like Melbourne in July...



On my way up the steep hill to the Kiwi Park, I passed this. Harsh but fair.


I arrived at the Kiwi Park entrance.


I was, indeed, let in for free to have a look around. This is where the bird show takes place. I know that my mother would love this. There's some accessible seating at the top which I think my mother could get to very easily.


Bird shows take place each day at 11:30am. They finish at 12pm, before a "Kiwi Encounter" in the Kiwi House at 12:15pm. My thinking is that if my mother could handle nothing but the bird show and the Kiwi Encounter, it would still be a very worthwhile time. So I timed how long it took me to walk from the bird show area to the Kiwi House.

It was a lovely walk...


... which took me four minutes. So let's triple that and say it would take my mother twelve minutes. Do-able.

I entered the Kiwi House.


Photography is prohibited, but you enter to what seems like pitch darkness before your eyes adjust. Once they do, you see a kiwi habitat and, yes, kiwis running around and doing their thing on the ground.

I was the only person in the Kiwi House -- just me and several kiwis. I have to admit to staying inside longer than I strictly needed to, given the purpose of my visit. It was magical.

I walked out, thinking, "We've got to come here."

I was told by the incredibly helpful and understanding staff (that's NZ for you) that we could enter by a side entrance which required less walking.


So all I need to do now is to persuade my mother to do it! Hopefully it won't take much persuasion because I am sure that she would find it a great experience, even if we need to take the hills very slowly.

Hopefully I'm not being overly optimistic?

 

[jastel]

Forgot to add MY father took his parents (and us) to NZ way back when I was about 16 and grandma was around 70. We live in Nth Qld so none of us had much to do with snow before.

We took her on the Shotover Jet, telling her it was just a boat cruise...she loved it!
Also did a scenic flight to Mt Cook and landed on a glacier, us grandkids then started a snowball fight which she got involved in...it was all good until the pilot said it was -10 degrees or something and she went straight back to sit in the plane.
They came up the mountains to watch us kids attempt to snowski but spent most of the time indoors where it was warmer sipping coffee.

I guess they get some good memories from it as well.

 

[Human]

The centrepiece of today was a boat ride across the lake to Walter Peak Farm for a buffet lunch and “Farm Show”.

I originally booked this, months ago, on the TSS Earnslaw but they called me early last week to say that the Earnslaw would be out of action until October. So we were re-booked on the significantly more modern “Spirit of Queenstown”. I have to say that while the Earnslaw would have been very nice, going on the Spirit of Queenstown did not significantly detract from the enjoyment of the day.

We made our way to Steamer Wharf at about 12:30pm, past the dysfunctional TSS Earnslaw.



We boarded our boat. There was indoor seating on the lower deck, or outdoor seating on the upper deck. My preference is almost always to sit outdoors, and I was happy that my mother was glad to do that. So we sat outside.


For the outward journey we were heading into quite a significant headwind. The boat’s speed was 19 knots, but the wind felt very strong – strong enough to lean into it without falling over. It wasn’t too cold, though, and of course the views were magnificent, as was the experience of being on Lake Wakatipu.


We docked at Walter Peak Farm and made our way over to the restaurant for the late-ish buffet lunch.


The amount of food I put on my plate was perhaps a little too much to be considered fully couth…


Then after a while it was time for a coffee and dessert, which was also available from the buffet. As I sat down I reflected that this was perhaps a New Zealand version of a “Café Gourmand” @FlyingFiona ? Or maybe the New Zealanders would want to claim that they invented it in the first place?


The only slightly bemusing moment came when I ordered my trim flat white. I was earnestly told that the restaurant did not keep any trim milk. I asked a team leader about that later, to be told that there was “not enough room for trim milk”. Yeah, right. Anyway, the full cream flat white ended up being perfectly fine.

In any case it was all absolutely delicious. My mother ate half as much as I did, but she loved it too.

 

[Human]

After lunch it was a short walk over to the little arena for the Farm Show. On the way I stopped at the beach to photograph a family…



… and turned back to photograph this view.


The farm show was here, and its stars were a man and his dog.



Sheep grazed peacefully far up at the top of the hill, oblivious to the ordeal that was awaiting them.



After a short introduction, we were treated to a sheep shearing demonstration.


Then the sheepdog, Mist, showed us what she can do. I always find sheepdog demonstrations a lot of fun!




After the show we had just enough time for a quick gift-shop stop.



We then boarded the “Spirit of Queenstown” for our quick 30-minute hop back into Queenstown. This time we were travelling with the wind, so it was a peaceful spinnaker-run into the town.




We could see, though, that bad weather was approaching fast.


We decided that to avoid the rain we’d head straight back to our hotel after we docked. However, my mother did feel the need for one emergency pit-stop.


We made it back to the Novotel just as the rain was picking up. Soon afterwards I heard that we’d made the correct decision on another front: a water main had burst in the town, leaving one of the main streets flooded. It was a few blocks from our hotel, though, so we had nothing to worry about.

Right?

The bottom line: my mother had an absolutely wonderful day today. She loved every second of it. When I asked her what the highlight was, she didn’t hesitate:

“Being on the water.”

Here’s to you, Lake Wakatipu.

 

[Human]

Unforeseen issue #2:

We went back to our rooms and I FaceTimed my wife and possibly wrote a little more of this TR. At 6pm we met downstairs. My mother wanted a Pina Colada (we’re on holidays, right?) and I was happy to learn that the Novotel still allows people to order house spirits for their welcome drink, so I had a gin and lemonade.


At 6:30pm we were discussing dinner options and firming on getting fish and chips from Erik’s Fish & Chips across the road. Then the evacuation alarm sounded. This was not a drill. Everyone had to leave now. Neither of us was dressed for the outside weather (it was cold and raining quite heavily), but we had no choice but to leave in what we were wearing.

Next to Erik’s is a little shed which they’ve set up with metal tables and chairs for patrons of their cuisine. So we ordered our fish and chips and my mother found the one free table. At least it was warm inside.

While we were waiting, a fire truck turned up. Then another.



Hotel guests were, meanwhile, huddled outside, attempting to stay warm and dry.


Our order was called and I took our food into the shed. We started to eat, as slowly as we could.

Just as we were finishing the final mouthful and I was beginning to wonder what compensation I should ask for, I peeked out to see that the evacuation was over and guests were being allowed back in. Phew!


The burst water main a few blocks away had resulted in a reduction of pressure to the water for the fire sprinklers, causing the fire alarm and the evacuation. I suppose that sounds vaguely logical…!