Queenstown

---

Day 526 (05.09.08)

We woke to stunning sunshine which was a welcome sign after the past few days of rain. The morning's destination was Queenstown - the adrenaline capital of NZ. Having done most of our thrilling things in Australia we decided to go and check out the scenery.

On arrival we parked up the little vans by the shore of the very blue Lake Wakatipu and took in the views over to the snow capped mountains beyond - what a place to put a town! We wandered along the lake front and were pleased to see the old lady of Queenstown moored at the docks. The TSS Earnslaw is over 100 years old and the last of a fleet of steam ships that used to take passengers or goods across Lake Wakatipu to varying destinations.

As it was such a clear day we wanted to get the best views of the town possible and make our way up to the top of Bob's Peak whilst Jean and Mike took a cruise on the lake. We could have taken the gondola up but decided that we'd save ourselves a few dollars and climb up instead - a pretty good hike an hour uphill through forested land.

The climb was absolutely worth it as we came to the top and looked out over the town, lake and Remarkables mountain range opposite - fantastic views. One of the things you can do at the top of Bob's Peak is to ride the exciting 800m luge. This had been recommended to us by a few people so we grabbed some helmets and took a ride further up the hill on a chairlift. At the top we jumped into some little carts for a quick (5 second ish) lesson on how to control our vehicles and then we were offon the first of the tracks (the training run!). We wound our way down the hill in fits of laughter and jumped back onto the chairlift to try the advanced track- oooh! With more twists and turns, banked corners and steeper sections this was great fun - highly recommended!

Returning to town we met up with Jean and Mike again before leaving town to head to Te Anau. We drove along the shores of the Lake in the shadow of the great Remarkables until we found a good picnic spot - probably our finest yet. As we continued our journey the reflections in the Lake urged us to make several more stops until we were lucky enough to get a flypast - a large old warplane we think must have come from the collection in Wanaka made a low flight over the lake right in front of us - fantastic.

The rest of the journey was also very scenic and we arrived in Te Anau with time to go for a quick stroll around town and past the lake before going back for some dinner.

---