I had a choice for my last full day in New Zealand: Drive up to the Blue Pools and Haast on the west coast. Or drive to the buzzing town of Queenstown.

I went to sleep and woke up thinking it would the first option (very much like me, I know), but maybe one of the best hidden secrets of New Zealand's made me change my mind: the sandflies.

After the Milford Sound experience of armies of sandflies munching away on us (I could literally hear them yell "Hey guys, lunch is here!"), I read up on the Blue Pools hike and Monro Beach. Especially for the latter, the common consensus in online reviews was: you'll last about 10 minutes on that beach before you give up because you are under constant attack from sandflies. Ehm, no thank you.

So I choose Queenstown over the remote west coast and the highly unlikely chance of seeing a rare penguin on Monro Beach. And I'm glad I went the other way.

Queenstown is a really fun town, with lots of stores, souvenir shops (the first one's I've seen in New Zealand, actually) and cafes and restaurants. There are a ton of stores that sell jade and paula shell jewelry too. The photo shows a bunch of paula shells, bigger than both your hands together. They are so beautiful!

It also must be the fun activity capital of the world because just by walking around I could see bungy jumping, paragliding, luge tracks, jet ski tours, speed boat adventures, escape rooms, a haunted house... quite literally everything that could get your hear rate up. And then there's a golf course on the half island you can see in the middle of the video... well, you know what they say about playing golf (at least in Germany).