Rumbled in Queenstown

This is the view from the top of the cable car. The land mass on the top right is a golf course.

I took off from Auckland last week and embarked on a flight to Queenstown on the South Island. Everyone I had spoken to in New Zealand had strongly recommended that I make the journey down South sooner rather than later and they weren’t wrong. The flight here was undoubtedly the most amazing scenically I have ever embarked on. Snow capped mountain ranges, the bluest lagoons and valleys even greener even than Ireland. The captain got himself into a lather coming onto the intercom every 2 minutes and telling us to, “Look out of the left window” and following up with “Quickly, look out of the right window”.

Queenstown is a ski resort (surrounded by a mountain range called the Remarkables) in the winter but there’s plenty to see and do in the summer. It has a small vibrant community, the most liberal licensing laws in the world (basically there are none) and the main street has a statue of one William Rees, by the look of things he was married to a sheep or was a professional sheep worrier.




Where is he going to put that hand?

I seem to be injuring both mentally and physically a lot of children on this journey. For instance on my 2nd day here I took the ski lift up the mountain range here (2500 ft above sea level) and had a go at lugeing. The point of lugeing is to get into a small sledge like vehicle and career down the mountain side at breakneck speed without dislocating too many bones. I actually didn’t break any bones myself but I may have been responsible for injuring a small child. Flying down the hill I didn’t remember how to brake so I did what any self preserving person would do and ran my luge into rear end of the 10 year kid in front of me shunting him into the crash barrier but more importantly slowing me down enough to not hurt myself. I heard his screams but I thought it best to get out of there before a parent turned up. I hope he was alright.


A spectacular view. I didnt see any helicopters so the injuries were not bad enough to be air lifted anywhere.


I heard a great story from a fellow backpacker the other day about bungee jumping. For those of you who don’t know The Kawarau Bridge Bungee in Queenstown was apparently were bungee all started so they now a thing or two about it in these parts. The Nevis Highwire Bungee (at a 143 metres, one of the worlds most fearsome) has a couple of employees with a devilish sense of humour. I was informed that they amuse themselves constantly by waiting until the petrified jumper has taken the final step over the edge, the one where there’s no going back and one of them will shout in a panicked voice, “No! Wait!”….My friend informed me they still do it even though last summer one of the jumpers had a heart attack after being told to “Stop” just as he leapt, I love the Kiwi sense of humour.

I also love the Kiwi attitude to wine, they love the stuff and the pinot grape is the particular speciality in this region. I have already done a couple of tours but they have something in Queenstown far more suitable to wine junkies like me. The ‘wine tastes’ shop in the centre of town is a little wine tasting tour all of its own. Hopefully the picture below explains how it works. You purchase an amount, put it on your card and then off you go to try one of the 84 wines available. These enomatic machines are the nuts, have a look at the website http://www.winetastes.com/





These machines are wonderful if you need to get drunk quickly on a wide variety of wines.



The only downer I have had since arriving in Queenstown has been the hostel, more specifically the tossers I had to share a dorm with for the first few days. I generally don’t have a problem with people called Rupert but when they a 19 year old trustafarian who cannot shut up about themselves I get a little narky.
Now this pleb wasn’t just born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he was born with the whole fucking crockery drawer, so when he and his mates kept discussing how many drinks they were stealing in the bar in the hostel each night I eventually lost my cool. As most people who know me understand I am not always at my best first thing in the morning, so on Monday morning when these wankers started chatting about it again I jumped up, walked over to his bunk and explained to him that if I heard of him or his boyfriends stealing another drink I was personally going to shove that drink somewhere where the sun didn’t shine.
It was on the long walk back to my bunk that I realised all 4 of these 19year olds were old fit rugby types who no doubt could have given me a bloomin good hiding. Thankfully their nerve cracked before mine and I was able to cover myself with the sheet and not let them see how much I was shaking, hurrah.
I didn’t hear a peep out of them until they left, though I did keep my Swiss army knife under my pillow, just in case.



He looked something like this this bloke.

After that incident nothing could really phase me, the snoring in the dorm (which is synchronised to sound something like the frog song) didn’t bother me, nor the fact that when I got into my bunk last night some drunken Canadian was already in there. Had it have been a female they would have had a chance at staying but sadly he wasn’t and so was forcibly removed at 5.30am this morning.

The reason for the extremely late night was that I was sat in an internet café listening to my horses get close but not win at Cheltenham. Sadly I cannot seem to get pictures of it anywhere but there is also something even more exciting about listening to your selection get beat rather than boringly just watching it.
The same cannot be said of the incredibly exciting FA cup match between God’s own team and the loathsome Spurs on Sunday. When we scored the equaliser with 3 minutes to go I proper lost the plot, it was another Spillane shirt off and run round the bar moment.
The local brew Monteiths seemed to hit the spot once again and the staff in the casino bar seemed amused but the 2 Tottenham fans I was watching with didn’t speak to me after that, no great loss I guess.


I end this week’s blog with another remarkable story that you just couldn’t make up.
I arrived here on Thursday I immediately located a casino that held poker. I had a bit of a laugh and made out I had never played before (fill in any joke necessary here) and kept asking for advice, tips etc.
I do this when I can partly to throw people of the scent that I may have some clue as to what I’m doing, but the main reason is so I can take the piss out of the players that deserve it but then can hide behind my innocence.

This façade had been working smoothly until Sunday night when a couple sat down and began to play. The husband sat next to me and we got talking. His name was Jason and seemed a decent bloke; in between hands we chatted about a number of subjects, anything but poker in fact. That was until I asked him what he did and he replied ‘professional poker player’.
I was a little stumped and asked a few more questions and realised he was Jason Grey, one of Australia’s top players, someone I had watched play in the poker ashes in Australia 4 years previously and I made the mistake of telling him so. We continued chatting and realised we had many mutual friends in common, it was then he asked me my name and after I told him he stopped the table dead with the following line.
“Paul Spillane, you wrote that that article about the Monte Carlo Millions, I love your poker articles”.
Though flattered it wasn’t the flattery that made me go beetroot coloured. Fortunately all but one of the players saw the funny side and no one liked him anyway. I suppose it was only fitting that after they rumbled that I was an ex pro they completely skinned me that night.


The only 'Monty' i like.