Queenstown – Thank goodness for 4 nights!

Due to the flooding in the Fjordlands on the west coast of the south island…we had to cancel our 2 nights in Franz Josef glacier (as well as the train across the island back to Christchurch), so we decided to simply add a night in Queenstown and Christchurch.

I’m glad we did because Queenstown is gorgeous! Here is the view from the kitchen/living room of our Airbnb:

Seriously, our view from the kitchen table….why don’t we all live here??

When we got here – we went right to a park whereupon Stella immediately found some friends to build ‘pirate hut’ out of sticks and trees that have made their way to shore (yup…Queenstown is also flooded!)

The kid in the center is the one who invited her to build the hut..I have no idea who the grumpy one is 🙂

We took it easy for the rest of the night. Ok I’ll be real here, basically the kids both had a total meltdown in Madame Woo’s restaurant (if you are ever in Queenstown, this is a MUST) and we needed to get home quick to get them in bed. If we’re really being honest…that translated into Leo going right to sleep, and Stella staying up until about 11:30pm. 😦

The next morning (today) was way more eventful. I woke up pretty early and had some time to myself:

I am sitting on our porch having my coffee

This morning was our scheduled helicopter ride up the mountain. Stella has been looking forward to this part of the trip for months.

Stella’s take: It was very comfortable in the helicopter. I was a little nervous at first because I have never been on a helicopter before and we went on a mountain and I threw at snowball at my mom’s face, it was so funny, and then we got back on the helicopter. There was a headset and we could talk to each other through the headset.

This was by far our most ‘indulgent’ experience of the trip but I figured if we were gonna do this anywhere, it should be here and Stella’s initial trepidation and then excitement was pretty epic.

She’s not kidding, she literally threw a snowball RIGHT at my face

From the mountain, we then did the next big adventure in Queenstown and took a gondola up the mountain followed by FIVE (5) luge rides down the mountain!