This is the first of my New Zealand Travel diary and I can’t wait to share with you my experience so far! Here are some super quick answers to some common questions
I am here with my husband, 8 year old son and 6 year old daughter
We are staying at Peppers Beacon, Queenstown
We are staying here for 7 nights
Here is a list of snow essentials for skiing or snowboarding that I recommend buying before coming to NZ. I got most of the snow gear from ALDI and the remaining from Mountain Warehouse.
Day one
After a really smooth flight we arrived in a surprisingly warm Queenstown. **TIP – If you have booked everything through a travel agent definitely check your itinerary to make sure you do not need to call and confirm any of your transfers or planned activities.** I’m sharing this tip early on because we forgot to reconfirm our transfer to the hotel so we ended up having to pay for a taxi there. After checking into our hotel at Peppers Beacon, we then had to run around like crazy people collecting passes and rental equipment for our next few days at the mountains. From talking to other people this part of the process did not need to be as complicated or as stressful as it was for us but it was unfortunately a result of the way our agent booked everything. We ended the day with a BEAUTIFUL dinner at Pier Restaurant and Bar.
The View From Our Hotel Room
Day two
Coronet Peak – Today was the first day that my children had ever seen snow! Even more magical is that when we got to the top of the mountain it was actually snowing which was a fantastic experience for our little ones. My husband and I both had this vision of our first trip to the mountains as being a calm, exciting experience but with children it was a chaotic stressful situation that we were beginning to regret (Don’t worry that feeling only lasted about 30 mins lol!) **TIP – Be prepared to carry a shit tonne of stuff for your day. Utilise the millions of pockets you have in your jackets for goggles, gloves and snow passes as you’ll need hands free to carry everything else. Take a canvas bag for your helmets (or wear them), you will need to carry your ski/snowboard boots (some people wear them for the whole day, but they are very uncomfortable, so I recommend taking a change of boots.) Finally, you will also need a spare hand free for your skis/snowboard.**
Being stereotypical Australians our children were hating the amount of layers they had to wear but also hating the cold. They complained about having to carry their ski gear, they were constantly dropping and loosing things and genuinely making the process as painful as possible. Once we dropped them of to their ski lessons, we breathed a sigh of relief and our experience became a bit more enjoyable. If you are going with children, I can’t recommend booking them into a full day of skiing or snowboarding lessons enough. They are gone for the entire day 10:00-4:00, lunch and afternoon tea are provided so you can relax without having to worry about them and they LOVED it!
My husband and I both had skiing lessons but I only lasted 30 mins as it was way too painful for my back and although my husband did the entire lesson he also struggled with pain from previous injuries (WE ARE SO OLD!) **TIP – Take a book or some sort of entertainment just in case you want a break from the snow. There is a bar/restaurant/cafe that you can relax in** After an entire day at the slopes we went home, showered and went for dinner at Farelli’s Trattoria which was an incredible Italian restaurant for the whole family.
Let me know if you have any questions or if there is something in particular you would like to see in future posts. 🙂
Thanks for reading ☮