HI everyone, having been living & working in Queenstown for several months now, and thought to write this article just as a little warning to help people live here more comfortably & avoid the kind of problems that happen here. Queenstown is a beautiful place, but there are some issues you should know about before you arrive so that you can plan for it, or avoid those troubles.
- Transience: because the population is very transient, this can mean employment & accommodation difficulties, and unfortunately, there is still a legacy here in NZ of some very old ways of thinking from a business point of view... real estate agents won't take you seriously because they know you might be gone soon, or that your job (likely to be in hospitality & tourism, which dont typically pay well) is uncertain, or that your housemates will be unrealiable etc. Some people who were working on farms on their way down the west coast, encountered a farmer refused to pay them for their work, he knew that they would leave the country, and so the odds of them actually taking him to court were minimal. Even when you are paid "fairly", this is balanced against the fact that you are a backpacker, and so again they know they can get away with paying you less than the legal minimum wage, and so sometimes some of them do... just be aware of this, and dont be afraid to complain & go to the local citizens advice bureau about it if it happens to you.
- Housing: the standard of construction here is quite frankly, pretty well rubbish... there are some very nice houses too, but they cost too much to afford, it is a very expensive place to live, and so many people struggle here financially to pay rent in a decent place. Realistically, there are a huge number of buildings in town that just need to be knocked down, they are horribly old & dilapidated.
- Food: in the winter, since it is ice & snow everywhere, the quality of fresh fruit & vegetables at the supermarkets seems to go WAY down... Salads frequently purchased from the local supermarkets were already starting to decompose while the useby date was well within its bounds... it has improved a bit now that it is summer, but it is still below the standard you may expect based on experiences elsewhere & overseas... Whether it is just because of the remoteness of the location or something else, basically you pay a lot of money for shopping here, and the quality & variety of fresh fruit & veg sometimes isnt that great. Many of the restaurants are fantastic though, so perhaps they are getting their ingredients from somewhere else (?), or just have an uncanny ability to hide what is below par, but of course its a bit tricky to afford to eat out every day & night.
...so those are the warnings anyway... come here prepared, and don't take poor conditions from employers who want to take advantage of you, and definitely report them if they do otherwise they will keep getting away with it, and it brings the standards down for everyone.
On a more positive note, there are lots of beautiful sights & fun activities here, if you can afford them... and the weather in summer is spectacular because it rarely rains & is pretty much sunny & warm most days, without being too unbearably hot.