Queenstown, New Zealand

Meghan and I have had a wonderful couple of days here in Queenstown! Our hotel is beautiful and you couldn't have asked for a more beautiful view of the lake. We've kept ourselves busy shopping, eating and drinking lots of beer! Queenstown is easily the most naturally beautifully place I've ever been and that's saying a lot considering I built a log cabin in Alaska!

Down the road from our hotel was a sign for hike called the One Mile Powerhouse. Well it was definitely a Powerhouse Hike. The hike was basically straight up the side of the mountain on extremely rugged terrain. It followed a large iron pipe that fed an old water powered generator. After finished the hike, Meghan wanted to continue hiking and we decided to continue to another trail called the SkyLine Gondola Trail. 2 hours after starting our short hike, we find ourselves at the top of the mountain with incredible views of the city. The hike took it out of us, but it was worth it.

We've had some pretty good beer & food. You won't Bud Light here! Almost every beer here is some sort of micro brew. Yesterday for lunch, Meghan and I went to a burger joint called Ferg Burger (not to be confused with Terd Burger!). The burgers were huge and slathered with BBQ. The Kiw's love their BBQ sauce burgers. Even McDonalds sells a BBQ burger. Today for Lunch, we went to Speights (Pronouced Spites) Brewpub and had some really good bar food and sampled some local NZ beer. Tonight we are heading off for a dinner cruise. However, we are not actually eating on the boat. The boat is ferrying us across the lake to a farm where we will see a sheep herding & shearing demonstration and then have a NZ buffet dinner.

Activities:

Today I went bungy jumping for the first time in my life. I went to the originial bungy site at the Kawaru River Bridge. This is the site of the first commercialized Bungy site in the world. The location was gorgeous. I chose to do a head dunk in the river and sure enough, they delivered. I fell 400+ feet and dipped my head in the river below. Looking down before the jump was one of the most intense adrenaline pumping moments of my life! The jump turned out to be the easiet part of the entire process!

Lost Luggage, No Problem

It was bound to happen I guess, 4 cheked bags, 14,000 miles to travel. It's bound get lost as some point! So Meghan and I spent our first morning here in NZ without my prized Nikon D90. What made it even more painful is that this was one of the most beautiful days so far in ZA. Everyone was raving about it. We have a few pictures, from Meghan's iPhone, but I got a tellya, I was jonesing for the raw power of Nikon. After 48 hours wearing the same clothes, Mehgan I got our luggage and took very long host showers. I've taken 3 baths to day just to get teh travel stink off mel We have been taking som nice pics and will upload shortly. tomrrow, I go bungy jumping.

Check out Meghan styling her new eye mask for airplane! I'm staying up all night so I can sleep during our 29 hours of travel tomorrow. Watch out Queenstown, you've got your hands full!

Beer Connoisseur heading to New Zealand

My wife, Meghan, and I are packing tonight getting ready for our big trip to New Zealand. We are heading to Queenstown, NZ before heading out for a 4 day 3 night hike called the Milford Track. We planned the trip way before Lynn and I re-started the Beer Connoisseur Magazine, but since I'm heading over, might as well feature it in our magazine!

It's been a busy week between working my full time job during the day and working on the magazine at night. Never thought I would say this but starting a business and working 90 hours a week is a ton of fun. Doesn't allow for much sleep, though.

Keep coming back because starting this week I'll be posting from New Zealand!

Introduction

Hi everyone!

My name is Christopher Miller. I'm 34 years old, married and losing more & more hair everyday. I'm working with a buddy of mine, Lynn Davis, to start the Beer Connoisseur Magazine. We are currently in the startup phase and it's been a hectice life for the last couple of months. Beer Connoisseur Online is currently being developed by Matt Drake, a Georgia Tech Student. Check out my first blog entry to get the beta login code to see the website come together. I'm starting this blog as kind of a journal to chronicle the beginning of the magazine. More lata.

Christopher Oren

Beer Connoisseur Beta Login

Hi Everyone,

Go to www.beerconnoisseur.com. Enter beertest5 in the beta login to get exclusive access to the building of Beer Connoisseur Online.