Day 22: Quad Bikes in Queenstown

Day 22

Summary: Drove to Queenstown, learned how to ride quad bikes on a tour, watched sunset over Lake Wakatipu

Thursday, January 23rd

We packed up and left our Airbnb by 9:30 and drove 2 hours to our final stop on our trip: Queenstown! I had heard there were lots of things to do there, so we allotted about two days to explore.

Queenstown was definitely the most touristy place we visited on our itinerary, and right away we could tell the difference: we had to pay for parking!

Our tour guide in Australia was vegan, and he recommended we try eating at a Lord of the Fries if we encountered one. There was one in Queenstown, so we stopped there for lunch. It was good, basically a fast food menu that is all vegan! I had a vegan chicken sandwich, Greg had a vegan burger, and we shared some sweet potato fries. We couldn’t linger long because we had an activity booked for 1pm: quad biking!

A quad bike is the same thing as what you would call an ATV or 4-wheeler. It’s a sport bike with four wheels. Greg found a place on Tripadvisor that takes you out and teaches you how to ride and brings you on some trails. Neither of us had ever ridden a 4-wheeler and I have always wanted to try it! So we booked a 1-hour tour with Offroad Adventures.

We checked in at their office in downtown Queenstown and the guide drove us out to the property in a van with one other couple. They outfitted us with rubber boots, a helmet, and gloves.

Since there were only two couples and two guides, each couple got their own private tour experience. It was pretty awesome!

As soon as I got on the bike, I LOVED it! I’m no daredevil, so I wasn’t going super fast or popping wheelies, but I loved finding the lines and leaning into the turns. Our guide was really sweet and told me I have excellent self-preservation instincts. What a nice way of putting it!

Greg was more eager to go fast and he was really great at it!

We followed our guide along a few tracks to learn how to ride, then we went onto other trails and drove around a beautiful landscape.

The proper way to sit on the bike is to pull yourself up close towards the handlebars and squeeze your legs tight. And when you drive through curves, lean your whole weight to one side and slide half of your butt off the seat. My muscles along my spine and inner thighs were really sore the next two days!

Our tour was one hour, but the other couple’s tour was an hour and a half. Since we all drove in one van, our guide offered to take Greg and I to a nearby river to hang out while we waited for the other group to finish their ride. We agreed, since it would be way cooler than waiting in the sun back at the van!

The river is at the bottom of a steep hill, so he had me hop on the back of his bike and hold on while Greg drove down himself. Greg has experience mountain biking, so he had no problems. I’m glad I was a passenger for the drive up and down!

We jumped in the river and it was freezing! I almost reflexively gasped when I went underwater because it was so shocking! But it was nice and refreshing.

Our guide said that they filmed scenes in the Lord of the Rings somewhere on this river: The Pillars of Kings!

On our drive back to Queenstown, our guide discovered he was in the car with four fans of Lord of the Rings, so he took us the long way back to the office so he could show us another filming location. The dark mountains in the background are called The Remarkables (in real life, although it does sound like a name from Middle Earth). The brown grassy hill in front of the mountains is where they filmed the scenes where the people of Rohan are walking to Helm’s Deep when they are ambushed by orcs and Aragorn falls off a cliff. So cool!

We had a nice view of Lake Wakatipu with Queenstown below.

Our guide dropped us off at their office and Greg and I drove to our final lodging: The Sherwood hotel. It was the only hotel we stayed at besides the airport hotel. Every other place we stayed was either a hostel or an Airbnb. We liked the Sherwood because the rooms had a neat boho design and a restaurant with its own garden and compost. The hotel was originally built in the 70’s and was recently redone using sustainable materials such as recycled rugs made into curtains, natural cork on the ceilings, and solar panels on the roof. They used local art on the walls and it was very homey. When we walked into our room, the Bluetooth speaker was playing quiet piano music – a nice touch!

After showering off all the dust from quad biking, we went downtown to eat at a tucked away place called Taco Medic. I had a fish taco, a black bean taco, and a fun soda with orange, strawberry, and lavender. Yum!

We watched the sunset on the lake at 9pm. It felt so nice to have such long days when back at home it would get dark at 4pm this time of year.