Since we were at the furthest point of our journey it was another long distance drive today.
Luckily we had added some more music to the USB stick and our road trip began with "Highway to Hell".
We didn't want to fill up with breakfast this morning because for lunch we wanted to be hungry and stop off at the famous Fergburger in Queenstown.
For some reason (well, probably because it's a great burger) this small, one shop burger restaurant has become world famous and we need to try it out as well.
Aside from having Fergburger, Queenstown is also a very lovely town sitting a large lake (Lake Wakatipu) and is the Adventure Capital of New Zealand. It is here where most of the crazy ways to adrenaline kicks were invented.
But back to Fergburger: the queue looked quite long when driving by and so we decided that I jump out of the car and queue up while mom and dad looked for a parking spot. But in the end the queue moved so quickly that I had to let people pass until my parents came around.
No harm done, we ordered three Fergburgers (cheddar and blue cheese on two) plus 2 chips for just 45 $, which is really reasonable for NZ prices and had to wait until our order was done. This was about 15 minutes or so. The time waiting was certainly not boring as it was great fun to watch the 12 -15 employees in the tiny kitchen jump back and forth, shouting orders, requests and commands around and creating huge amounts of burgers in no time.
The best part of the visit, however was the burger itself. It really did taste great and held up to the expectations.
I struggled to finish all the chips in the end and we needed a nice walk around the lovely town before getting back in the car.
To properly mess up the digestive system and more importantly maybe to tick another of those to-do boxes on the New Zealand list we stopped off at the Kawarau Bridge for a bungy jump.
This is the place where the first commercial in 1988 took place.
The place was incredibly professionally set up. A bit like Disney land, with a big entrance hall, a gift shop a restaurant and all this.
For my taste a bit too much, but it's one of the more famous jumps.
I knew if I don't do it now, I won't do it in the home country of Bungy. So I did it.
A 43 meter jump with little dip in the water of the Kawarau gorge.
It was a great feeling to just jump off this little platform high above the river but I was surprised how quickly I was decelerated by the rubber rope, at the end I wasn't even sure if I was going to touch the water, but I did dip in and then shot out again and bounced around a couple of times.
It was pretty amazing and possibly worth the money.
I do see how things have to get bigger and bigger, though. Next time 43 m would not be enough and if you want to jump higher it most likely will cost you more as well. I am not sure if I am willing to do it again for that amount of money. Maybe it is really one of these "have done it" things.
Our target destination for the day was Mt Cook, which is not just the highest mountain in New Zealand but also the little alpine village to it's foot.
Unfortunately this fancy location makes it a very expensive one and the only real option after reading through the travel guide was the YHA hostel.
While stopping off at a cafe to refresh from all the driving we found out with a call that even that is expensive and more importantly didn't have any rooms with en-suit bathroom.
We decided to try our luck in Twizel, the town closest (just 80km away) to Mt Cook.
And indeed we were lucky and found good place for good money. There was even a small surprise included. We were given the key to room 807 but when walking up to it there was a man smoking a cigarette sitting in front of it and told us it was his room.
We showed him our key which said 807 and then walked back to reception to see what they were saying. So we got room 808 but the lunch for the guy in room 807 was in our fridge, so that was then given to reception and eventually to him. Must have been a very late lunch for him.
Since it had been really nice for the entire day, weatherwise, we decided to drive up to Mt Cook and take a look.
The drive down along the lake was already well worth it but when we arrived at the parking area closest to the mountain the sun just began to set and enveloped the peak into a wonderful orange Alpenglow (as these are the southern Alps the word actually works).
There were already a couple of very professional looking photographers on the little hill that seemed to have the best view of the peak.
It was also time to take out our jackets now as it became a little chilly while we watched the mountain top change from yellow, to orange and then to bright red which then faded away. The entire procedure took about 15 to 20 minutes and everyone packed up and left back for the car park.
There were plenty of rabbits trying to cross the street on the way back to the Motel but I think I didn't hit any of them.
We finally arrived home at 22:30 and spent the last hours of the day with some pictures of the trip and only a few Nachos for dinner.
The Fergburger had apparently done it's job.
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