Great report! And so much food. Now I'm wondering what to eat for dinner...
In Queenstown, why did you not check in for your AKL-MEL flight as well? It definitely makes the connection to the international terminal a bit less stressful! Or were you on separate tickets? Also, your biz class flight out of AKL means you would have been able to use the lounge at Queenstown, even without *A status. Though you didn't miss all that much