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Published: November 20th 2008
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Well, Ian did have another pie, and then we were on our way to Queenstown. Just like the picture says, we camped in a place they used for filming Ithilien in Lord of the Rings, it was a pretty nice spot! Queenstown is a really picturesque town with a massive lake (in fact NZ's longest lake at over 80km long) and snow capped mountains pretty much all around but there are a lot of tourists all doing adrenaline rush activities which gives the place an odd feel. As neither of us were planning to do a bungy jump or a skydive just yet we didn't stay too long, but long enough to get in a round of frisbee golf in the local park. We bought ourselves a couple of cheap frisbees and armed with the map headed to the park. The first couple of holes were a challenge to say the least, some 'holes' are poles you just have to hit, others are baskets you have to get your frisbee into, with each hole having its own par. It was really good fun to start with, apart from having to wait for the bus tours to move out of the way
(apparently pedestrians have a right of way in the park?!), but after 18 holes we were ready to finish, plus Ian's frisbee was barely a frisbee! I think it's fair to say that frisbee golf is not Ian's sport and I'd pretty much won from the first few holes! After this exciting, and tiring morning of frisbee golf we decided to treat ourselves to a Fergburger (local burger place) and it was amazing (Siân, I reckon you'll be a little jealous of this!)
We did some more sightseeing then we were on our way. We headed to a campsite via one of the scariest roads I've ever been on. It was pretty much a one lane track around a mountain and it was up and down, and constantly winding, and we only got stuck once! We drove along the Skippers Canyon (another Lord of the Rings location) passing some historic gold mining sites and crossing some scary bridges (like the one in the picture) and then camped at the site of an old school, it was really nice. The only problem was that the road ended at the campsite and we had to do the whole drive back the
next day, ah well, at least it was pretty scenic, if not very scary!!!
We stopped at the small town of Arrowtown for a spot of gold panning, and we think we found a few flakes of gold, but the excitement soon wore off after the third time of panning and we'd found no nuggets! We continued our journey north stopping to see some crazy people bungy jumping, Ian was a little tempted but I was scared just watching them! A local guide book had an advert for a cinema at Wanaka (Cinema Paradiso), and as we were there and it was raining we decided to go....it turned out to be the best cinema I have ever been to. There was a cafe serving really good food and through a side door you enter the cinema, where the chairs are actually sofas and armchairs (oh, and a random car). We picked ourselves a nice leather two seater sofa and were set. At the interval, some people went out to have food and Ian went to get some homemade ice cream, but also came back with a freshly baked cookie!! So for the second half of the film we sat
back with our ice cream, cookie and a beer! (Some people brought their food in on a tray!)
We then continued our journey through Mount Aspiring National park where we stopped and did a few short walks, one of them had the steepest path ever (even steeper than the world's steepest street!) to a lookout at the top of Haast pass, but the views from the top were good. In Haast we tried a whitebait pattie, basically just a lot of whitebait in an egg mix, fried and served on bread with a wedge of lemon, it's ok, but not sure whitebait's really my thing! (it's currently whitebait season and you pass so many people out whitebaiting along the rivers, there's a lot of money in it apparently - $50 a kilo!!).
Our next adventure was to be had at Franz Josef glacier, via Fox glacier, where we did a walk to the terminal wall (i.e. the end of the glacier). At Franz Josef, we did the walk to the terminal wall and a lookout and then booked ourselves on a heli hike for 2:30 the next day. Well, 2:30 came and so had the clouds.... and so
the heli hike was cancelled. We woke up the next day (having booked on the 12 o'clock trip) to lots of clouds! But our luck was in and the sun came out and the clouds went away, and so we were off. We got our boots, jackets and all our gear and then had to wait for the helicopter. Finally our helicopter came and we were off. The views were amazing and we were about half way up the glacier when the helicopter started turning around - the pilot said in a really calm voice that a warning light had come on so we had to turn back - I really didn't think this trip was going to happen but 10 minutes later and we were on another helicopter and back up over the glacier. We went right up to the top of the glacier before landing about 1/3 of the way up and then we got out, put our crampons (spikes) on and we were off exploring the glacier. We had about 2 hours on a guided walk around the glacier - it was amazing. We saw some snow caves, waterfalls, amazing ice formations, pools and even saw and
heard a small snow fall higher up on the glacier - it was so loud!
I'm not sure you'll believe me when I say this but Ian and I have spent a day making knives! There's a place in Barrytown where you can actually make a knife, from start to finish in one day. Firstly was the forging, ie getting the steel red hot in the fire and banging it as hard as you could into a knife like shape, then it was making the handle, then sanding by machine and hand. I have to be honest and say we recieved some help making the knives, but some things had to be done by the professional, like filing away the toxic filler we'd used! Anyway, we are both amazed by the finished product, and my knife is going to be the best cake knife ever!!!
That's about it until Marlborough wine region but that's another story. For those who are interested and haven't done so yet, you can subscribe to the blog so that you'll get an email when we add something. Also, feel free to leave comments!
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