View from our apartment
Well here I was eager for my first overseas skiing trip (and what a way to hopefully start off what will be many more overseas ski trips) to Queenstown. I was travelling with my partner in crime Ruth who is a better skier than me, but at least we are probably at similar levels and are able to keep up with one another. We were set to spend 7 full days in the adventure capital and were really looking forward to an action packed trip - with our emphasis being primarily on good snow!
Arriving on the Saturday arvo at our very well equipped and modern townhouse found via the internet, we found that it was literally a 10 minute walk to the town centre. Found a local pub to eat at (noted that there were heaps of places - pubs, cafes, restaurantse etc) and found that the supermarket would come in handy on the days that we felt energetic enough to cook after a day on the slopes.
Downtown tourist shopping strip
The town is completely geared towards tourists and there are many tour operator centres and advisory places - it is certainly a town full of many acitivities available to try. The advisory tour centres are all heavily geared with the latest info and weather conditions for the snow and general areas around Queenstown. We found that there were many many many snow retailers and hire companies which you would expect. These were all generally pretty competitive but it paid to just look around for comparisons to bundle deals and equipment that you may need. Note that transport to the ski fields needs to be pre-booked by bus times and pick-up destinations. It would be wise to do a bit of pre-planning to figure out which resorts you want to ski at so you can maximise the value of the tickets/tour companies that you use.
Magnificent blue sky and blue water
Some bus companies will only service a particular resort and others will offer different deals in order to generate more confirmed bookings on their side. Beware that due to the distances from the town centre to the ski fields, there are only a few offered buses to the fields each day. You have to book to ensure your seat on the bus. You also need to make sure that you are on time as the bus will not wait for you. So we found that at the end of every day, we would need to check out the forecast for the next day and then decide where we wanted to ski so we could book our seat on the bus the next morning.
