More Queenstown

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Tuesday 4th September

After getting up at 7am (I couldn't believe it myself), we headed to the gym! We spent 2/3 hrs there, helped by the view of the mountains that just happened to be outside the 2nd floor window in the direction the treadmills were facing! So it was quite easy to lose track of time cycling along listening to a banging tune with an alpine backdrop.

That afternoon we were picked up around 1.30pm by a guy Gunther - who took us in his 4x4 around the entire rim of the valley - and it was only $99 for 4.5 hrs (35quid) with just the three of us so a very personalised service. We saw quite a few Lord of the Rings locations:

the valley of the kings,
the river that the horses and the black riders crossed,
the place where Aragon fell over the edge and some more I forget.

He also had a good knowledge of useless LOTR facts: did you know they used the NZ army as extras - who ate their weeks worth of food in a day. They also took the meaning of fight a bit too literally and ended up breaking all the wooden props..

We also got to play in the snow - there was 35cm of fresh snow that day - like powder. Queenstown also had the biggest goldrush in history - 1 billion NZ dollars worth in total and we visited a quaint mining town called Arrowtown- straight out of a western. The 4x4 trip included some hardcore off-road rallying - through mud and a river that came right up to the windows. Good times!

Wednesday, 5th September

Yesterday was amazing fun - went in a helicopter for the first time and white-water rafting down the Shotover river - though it was bloody freezing - everything shrunk! We also saw someone do a bungy swing above our heads while we were on the river - they fell quite a long way before the ropes kicked in!

We're planning to move on today if we can find a car to hire. We're going to Milford Sound - a massive lake which we can kayak around and see dolphins/seals etc..it's a 5 hr drive through the mountains. Probably stay there tonight and then move on..

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Photos

Where Aragon Fell
It was very windy here - I'm not surprised he fell off!