We ended up spending three full days and four nights in and around Queenstown. Originally I had only planned for two days and three nights, but rearranging our Milford Sound tour gave us a bit more time. The weather forecast didn’t look great for the last two days, but in the end it wasn’t too bad and didn’t really impact our activities much.

On our first evening in Queenstown, we decided to eat at Fergburger. It’s a world-famous burger place that also has a bakery and bar adjacent to it (Fergbaker and Fergbar). One tip to avoid the long line at the restaurant (they don’t take reservations or have table service) is to call ahead and order then pick up your order at the counter. Here’s the menu.

I called from the Sofitel and ordered a Fergburger deluxe for me and a regular Fergburger with cheese for my wife. She asked for no sauces on hers, but I insisted we should have it the way they make it. Well, she was right (as usual).

We walked over and picked up our order in about 15 minutes, walking past all the people waiting in line to order and picking it up from the window. We got some drinks as well and walked over to a nearby bench to try the famous burger.

In the end, I thought the burger itself was fine, but the bun was a little too large and the sauces didn’t really help the flavor. I would have been better off getting no sauce and just adding ketchup. We shared an order of fries as well and they were good, thin like McDonald’s fries, but fresher and crispier.

The next morning, we left our bags and car at the Sofitel and did some extreme sports, old people version. In other words, not extreme sports. First, we went jetboating with Thunder Jet. There are a few options for jetboating in Queenstown. One of them goes to the Shotover River but you have to take a bus to get to the boat. There are also two available right in town and Thunder Jet was NZ$40 cheaper so it got my business.

The boat left at 11am and went down the Kawarau River, which doesn’t have the steep canyons of the Shotover, but still allowed us to do a lot of 360 degree turns and speed past the banks and under bridges. Another fun thing about Thunder Jet is that the driver blasted rock music through the whole ride with AC/DC, The Killers, and other great music that added to the thrill of the ride. I didn’t take a ton of pictures as I didn’t want to lose my phone over the side.

After the jetboat, we took the gondola up Ben Lomond. To get to the gondola station, it’s a bit uphill but not too bad. We bought tickets for the gondola and three rides on the luge at the top. It’s not really a luge – think of a go-kart without an engine.

At the top, you follow another uphill walkway to the luge start. Or, if you’re smart, you find the chairlift and go up that way. We were not smart so my wife was grumbling about the uphill walk. We took the luge down and after one ride, she had enough. I did my two other rides, but at that point, I had enough as well. It was fun, but busy and there’s only two tracks so once you’ve done them both, it gets repetitive.

After our “extreme sports” we made another visit to Ferg, but this time Fergbaker to try the meat pie. It was really good.

The rest of that day and the next was mostly spent relaxing. That night, we went to a Japanese restaurant called Goku and it was pretty good, although they had a limited selection of sushi and rolls.

On the morning of our last full day, I hiked up Queenstown hill at sunrise. It was a tough uphill walk, but the whole thing took less than two hours. The views at the top were great despite some clouds.

That afternoon we took the Wine Hopper Bus to several wineries near Queenstown. The bus leaves from the Red Rocks Bar in Queenstown and heads out to wineries of our choice. We took the advice of the driver/guide and stopped at Gibbston Valley, Mt. Rosa, and The Church wineries. Each time, the bus dropped us off for 45 minutes to an hour and we were free to order a tasting, a glass or some food. We enjoyed each one and at The Church, my wife gathered a bunch of lavender that we were able to bring home with us.

The excursion took about four hours and we were dropped back off back at the Red Rock Bar on Camp Street where we started from. The driver even gave my wife a box to hold all of her lavender as she had just wrapped it in her sweatshirt at the winery.

We had a great time in Queenstown with a mix of tourist sites, hiking and wineries. There’s a lot to do there for a few days and it’s a good place to base yourself for many day trips in the area as well.

Up Next: Eichardt’s Private Hotel Review

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