12/12/23 Tues: Woke up
at 7.30am to have our egg salad and tuna sandwich (NZD 13.80 for two) we bought
from Freshchoice supermarket the day before. We drove out to the quad bike
pickup point at Shotover Delta Road where the van from Queenstown Quad Bike
Adventure would pick us up at 8.45am for our first quad bike experience in Queenstown
(S$264.95 per pax)!
Turned out the whole
van was full of Singaporeans and these other guys were from a media company in
Singapore and enjoying their company retreat. Our three instructors, Roger,
Mike, who were New Zealanders and Jake who’s Australian, gave a brief introduction
before we signed the indemnity form and got ready in our suits and shoes for
the ride.
Learning how to drive
the quad bike was both nerve-wrecking and exciting for me because I would be in
control of a whole car! I enjoyed Daytona Racing at the arcades when I was
young, but I don’t hold a licence in the real world nor am I familiar with the
mechanics of a car, so I tried to pay closer attention while Mike explained how
to start the engine and throttle down to a stop when needed.
All of us had to go for
a “trial drive session” in a field before they taught us to drive across bumps
where we had to balance our body accordingly. I thought I handled it pretty
well, although one lady “failed” that part and had to sit in Jake’s quad bike
for the rest of our journey uphill.
The view was awesome
along the way and we had one or two pit stops to take photos. There was a short
tea and biscuit time at the peak of the hill looking out towards Queenstown~ it
was chilly because of the constant blowing from the wind! When we went back
down, my quad bike was right behind Jake’s and there were a few times when I
got too close to his bike yet it took me a while to understand his hand sign
telling me to back off lol.
My right thumb was
definitely sore from constantly applying pressure on the trigger to accelerate,
but it was a great 1 hour and 10 mins of fun nonetheless.
Drove 30 mins to
Boundary Street Carpark and walked to Fergburger where Potato queued to buy
burgers for our lunch. There was a snaking queue because that place is very popular
with locals and tourists. We tried their Prime NZ beef burger (NZD 15.9) and Wild
Fiordland deer burger (NZD 17.9). Mine was sweet and sour but the portion was
also too big for me to finish the whole burger.
Also bought two pies,
one butter chicken tart and one spinach mushroom tart (NZD13.8) from The
Queenstown Bakery and two apples (NZD 1.42) from Four Square for our breakfast
tomorrow morning.
Left at 3pm for Te Anau
and the drive took close to 2.5hours. We had a quick 45 minutes dinner at ditto
restaurant, which sells Japanese and Korean fusion food. Potato ate buttermilk
fried chicken pao (NZD 17) and I had crispy tofu vegetarian don (NZD 17.5)…
mine was not bad.
While we were waiting
for the ferry towards Te Anau Glomworm cave (S$165.39 per pax), we met two
Singaporeans who work at MBS. They approached us because we were wearing
jackets from MBS lol. There was a big Taiwanese tour group on the 25-minute
ferry ride across Lake Te Anau with us. *Apparently, Ta Anau Glowworm cave area
is where many protected Takahe birds are at!*
We were split into
small groups of about 10 pax to walk into the cave. Spent about 30 minutes
inside there, including 10 minutes into the glowworm grotto. No phones were
allowed and it was all quiet and serene in the pitch-dark cave where many
glowworms lit up the cave. *Interestingly, these glowworms are in their
larvae stage for nine months, which is the longest phase in their life cycle
and it’s the only time they feed. They only spend 20-24 days as an egg, 12 to 14
days as a pupa and one to five days as an adult fly (Fungas Gnat).* I loved
the quiet-ness and hopefully, I can experience something similar again in future!Went back to the visitors’
centre and we were given a brief introduction on the glowworms at Te Anau and
some tea before boarding the ferry back. PotaTOHS began driving back to
Queenstown at 9.30pm, but somehow Potato made a wrong turn somewhere because our
pocket wifi signal was weak and we ended up spending an extra 40mins on the
road! Luckily, we got signal somewhere and turned back onto the right path back
to our Airbnb, albeit we only got back at 12.15am… so tired. Potato was hungry
so he had cup noodles keke~
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