Apologies, I ‘borrowed’ this picture from a Queenstown council job advert….but I thought it was appropriate to the current move to Queenstown. With a bit of luck, and the additional purchase of a “fresh tracks” pass for me, hopefully I’ll be able to do this before work sometime as well.
I’ve added another pic of house at the bottom of the Quenstown Calling post – a view of the lakeside “back” of the house, taken from the street below….. from there you can see the massive double height window, similar up in the loft (accessible by dodgy ‘stairs’), and the baclcony with the BBQ on it 
We’re all signed up and moving in on 3rd May. We’re back in Wanaka to see Ciara’s cousin tomorrow night, and we did an amazing walk up Roys Peak today.
From there we’re heading up the West coast across the Haast pass, up to Franz and Fox glaciers and we’ll see on time after that. We may just head back the same way, or less likely, come back over Arthur’s Pass and the long way round via Christchurch. We officially have 12 days left on the last leg of our road trip!
Its crazy. We’ve been in Wanaka for 8 weeks pretty much and only today did we manage to walk up Roy’s Peak…which was top of our list. We were greeted with a superb view, and it may show why we love it here so much.
Lake Wanaka. At least its only 1hr from our door!
In 14 days between us we’ve had 2 interviews, 12 house viewings, 1 job acceptance, 6 hill pass crossings between Wanaka and Queenstown,2 mountain season passes bought, 1 lease acceptance and today we topped it off….
Ciara, after a mere 1 days skiing, bought her first skis and boots. Today I bought my first pair of ski touring skis and boots, and my first skis for about (eek) 23 years.
It looks like my snowboard and ice axes may hit a ship over soon …if my mum doesn’t go demented with my packing requests first (thanks mum!)
On top of all that my 12 foot Starboard stand up paddle board I won in Wellington with a photo at a coastal cleanup should be winging its way to Queenstown in 2 weeks time! (The fact that its too big for the van can be worked out later!)
Jeez it’s been a busy couple of months for us. I can’t believe that I’ve been so lax in blogging, yet we’ve been staying at a luxury 5 Star B&B/Lodge…with free WiFi.
Out time there ended last week a few days prematurely due to our circumstances (more later). It was a crazy 6 weeks there trying to give someone guidance on their business, that for many reasons wasn’t quite ready to move at the same pace as us. At times it was frustraing, other times funny, and other times it created so much anger in us, we realised our lives were being consumed by someone else’s issues, so it was time to move on.
It was a hard call to move – we has initially wanted to stay long term, and it was a potential avenue for us to stay in Wanaka, whilst doing work we were really enjoying initially. It looked promising for a while, but for many reasons wasn’t likely to be a viable option….a real shame as at one point we thought we could have landed onto something that would have kept us busy and satisifed for a few months.
We haven’t managed to do too much in Wanaka of the things we had hoped to, but that is slightly less of an issue now which you’ll understand soon. Several afternoons were spent climbing, we only managed to bike in the forest on our doorstep once, I managed to do some stand up paddle boarding (and met one of the female champions…who was a right rude bugger), many swims in the lake, and was just slowly getting into the habit of a morning run. If anywhere was going to get me up in the morning, it was Wanaka – a run along the lake and river in stunning scenery. Ciara however didn’t find it that stunning as to get up and run 
But we have great news!! I somehow have managed to get a full time IT job as a Software Development Manager in Queenstown (which some people have got me to refer to it as “South Wanaka”)…. If you think of NZ’s as one of the world’s adventure playgrounds, then Queenstown is the commercial heart of it all.
The company provides photo souvenirs to attractions around the world (which includes Edinburgh Castle and Fife’s Deep Sea World) and I’ll be managing the software team that writes all their stuff (that’ll be 2 of them then). It’s a bizarre marketplace to be so successful in, but it also combines my interest in photography… the software transfers photo and video across wireless networks, allows people to share them online in social media an much more.
We’re still pinching ourselves – there must only be one or two other jobs like this in Queenstown, if that.
In the last 10 days, I’ve had one interview, accepted the job, we’ve left the lodge, looked at 10 apartments/houses in Queenstown, applied for one of them, been down at not managing to sneak in a trip home, bought 2 winter ski/snowboard season passes at “early bird” prices and ”planned” a couple of weeks more touring in the South Island to complete the circuit!! PHEW! It’s been exhausting….and I haven’t even started work yet (in one week it’ll be a year after I left my last work).
We just heard today that our dream house has been secured as well, with a move in date at the start of May. It’s bigger than we need, but it’s pretty lush…… and has a log burner, panoramic windows, and views across the lake to die for. We can walk to the town centre as well which is a bonus, and we’ll get fit in the process as it’s up a steep hill. The photo at the top is the view from the living room!
We’ll have 2 ski resorts within 15km, and 2 more within 45-90 minutes. There’s everything on our doorstep from bungy jumping, jet boating (Shotover jet less than 10km away), parachuting, paragliding, kitesurfing, fishing, world class mountain biking, some diving, 4×4 driving, some of NZ’s best vineyards, and amazing trekking…..its tourist prices for most of those but we’ll survive with our own toys!
For visitors, Queenstown really is in the heart of where the majority of tourists want to visit. You can fly to Milford Sound from here (or drive), the lakes and glaciers are just around the corner or on the doorstep, and the mountains are all around. It’s only 200km from the coast, but the lake is huge anyway.
Queenstown, adventure capital of NZ, here we come! In the meantime, here’s some pics of our new (rental) house! Yes, that’s a log burner….and check out that view 
(in the run up to the move in date, we’re in Wanaka as a write this on a campsite by the river, we’re back to Queenstown on Sunday for Ciara’s interview for the same company, then heading towards to West Coast and glaciers for our last part of the road trip, and the last roads to cover in this South Island mission)
A nice morning in Wanaka!
