Snowboarding, Pies and Fergburger

 

Before I first visited Queenstown, I knew it was a fairly stereotypical resort town, propped up by tourism and filled with foreigners. But having heard how great it was from nearly everyone I met who had ever visited New Zealand, I was still surprised by just how small it was when I got there. The town is centred on just a couple of streets, Stanley Street and Shotover Street. But what they lack in size, they make up in enthusiasm. Queenstown is absolutely buzzing.

The town’s busiest season is winter, when crowds flock to take advantage of the excellent winter sports facilities. There are four main ski fields nearby: The Remarkables, Corona Peak, Treble Cone and Cardrona (where we ourselves headed, and whose fault it was I couldn’t stop singing, “Myyyyyyyyy Cardrona”, to the tune of 1979 mega-hit My Sharona). The Southern Alps, as the mountains are called, are stunningly beautiful, thanks partly to a natural phenomenon caused by the valley created between the mountains themselves. Here clouds collect, above the towns of Queenstown and Wanaka but below the mountain tops, creating what looks like a frozen bed of white fluff suspended several hundred metres into the sky.

The snowboarding itself was pretty excellent, thanks to lots of powdery, soft snow. It was only the third day of the season, so I imagine (although I am no snowboarding expert, let me tell you) the snow must be pretty darn fantastic at its peak. The only downside to the whole thing was the cost. Because roads are few and far between in New Zealand, and public transport even less prevalent, we had to book ourselves on a coach to the resort. And because we were on a worldwide trip and had come from a hot Chinese summer, we didn’t have any winter gear whatsoever. Once we had forked out to hire boards, boots, hats, gloves, goggles and salopettes and paid for our travel and ski passes, it worked out at £60 for the day. Not prohibitively expensive, but not exactly cheap either.

Aside from skiing and snowboarding, Queenstown offers all kinds of crazy pursuits – you know, bungee jumping, skydiving, all that sort of stuff – but what most people remember the place for is Fergburger. Down an unremarkable alleyway in this unremarkable town in New Zealand begins a queue. And at the end of this queue lies burgers. Big fat and oh-so-very-remarkable burgers. Some are made of beef, others lamb or chicken. Some are ever tofu. All of them are joyous.

And the pies, oh the pies! I’ve heard a lot of chat about how Australians are famous for their love of savoury pasty with a meaty filling, but in my experience pies in New Zealand are a) much more of a thing, and b) a whole lot tastier. Yes, the best pies I have ever eaten were from New Zealand (in fact, the very best pie I have ever had the pleasure to enjoy was a butter chicken pie from the Wild Bean cafe at the BP garage in Taupo, but that’s a different story). And while the pies on offer in Queenstown were not exactly prize-winning specimens – they were from the supermarket’s hot counter, priced about 60p and full of delicious, hot MSG – they kept me going in such times of financial difficulty. I had, after all, just spent nearly a week’s budget on snowboarding. It didn’t matter though: I’d had my fun rattling down hills, I was eating a magnificent pie and I was about to go to the pub in the most excitable town in New Zealand. It was all good.

-Vincent