NZ Days 7 & 8 - Wanaka and Queenstown

Day 7:
We started out the day in Wanaka with breakfast at a cafe with a good view of the Laka Wanaka and the surrounding mountains. It was sunny with a light breeze.

After breakfast we walked around a bit and along the shore. Wanaka is similar to Queenstown in that it is by a lake and has great views of mountains. And Wanaka and Queenstown are about an hour drive apart.

We then started our drive to Queenstown. Along the way, Vanessa decided to take her first turn driving; in NZ driving is on the left-hand side of the road, so this was a big event. Where we started, the road wasn't that curvy. However, shortly after she took the wheel, the road quickly became curvy in the mountains with many hairpin curves... not ideal for the first time driving on left.

This was humorous and tense. When a person is first driving on the left side of the road, there is a tendency to favor the left side of the car and sometimes drive near the edge of the road (or slightly off it), so Robert and I were continually keeping Vanessa apprised of when she was driving over the white line on the left side of the road.

We then stopped at a scenic view overlooking Queenstown, the valley, and the surrounding mountains. Quite a beautiful sight.

We continued our drive down into the valley and to Queenstown, where we had lunch at Flame Bar & Grill; we sat on their deck overlooking a small park, the lake, and with a great view of the mountains. The food was good, the service even better (very friendly), and it was also a great spot to people watch.

For the rest of the day, we mainly lounged around, surfed the Internet, and rested as the next day we would be white water rafting the Shotover River.

Day 8:
We went with the Queenstown Rafting company for our white water rafting trip. From there location on Shotover Street. In the main areas are photos of people having great fun rafting on the river... all good and well. We got checked in and before heading out I went to the restroom and on the way back I saw some photos in one of the offices... they were of rafts flipping over! Hmm....

At any rate, we took a bus to the pick-up point at the Shotover River and got changed into our wetsuits. We then hopped on another bus to take us to the put-in (start) spot.

Little did we know that the scariest part of this whole trip would be before even setting foot in a raft.

In order to get to the put-in spot on the Shotover River, we had to take Skipper's Road through Skipper's Canyon.

The Shotover River was once called "the richest river in the world" due to the gold found in it. However, access to the river is not so simple, as it is flowing out of the mountains near Queenstown. Thus, Skipper's Road was built during the gold rush in the late 1800s to provide gold-miners better access to the Shotover River and at the time was considered quite an engineering feet.

Well, this road also is quite narrow in spots, unsealed (more or less a dirt road), some hair-pin curves, and has sheer cliff drops of over 500 feet at some points! And we were on a bus? What!? Nobody told us about this drive.

During the ride we could look out our window straight down hundreds of feet. One wrong flinch by the bus driver and we would all be done on this earth... no question about it. It was quite scary. Though, all of us were very quiet with occasional nervous laughter. I think we were all acting brave, but later after talking about it with others we acknowledged how scared we were though the scenery was breathtaking. At any rate, you can check out this Discovery Channel video to see a little bit what it was like for us (only they are in a 4WD SUV and not a bus!).

When we finally made it to the river, they mentioned that if anyone had changed their mind and did not want to do the whitewater rafter, they could go back with the bus. Really? Because after the ride down, the rafting felt like the safest most serene option of the two.

They then gave us instructions on safety, how to maneuver in the raft, what to do if we fell out, etc. We were then assigned to guides and rafts. Our guide was a cool guy from California.

The beginning of the trip down the Shotover was relatively slow and gave the guide a time to teach us more instructions and taught us verbal commands and what we were supposed to do and who should do it. Sometimes one side should paddle, some times the other... sometimes we should duck down in the raft a bit, sometimes really hit the deck and hold on for dear life.

As we rafted down the river, we did hit some good rapids. Our guide told us stories about the area, particularly during its gold-mining heyday (there is still gold there, but tourism is more profitable and continued mining were really hurt the river), and past raft trips. Once he had given a command for one side to paddle and the other to lean towards that side, but the rafters did the opposite and flipped the raft.

We even practiced falling out of the water, floating for a bit, and getting back in. And during the trip one raft did flip, which was tense for a bit as one guy couldn't find his girlfriend... she was later found okay down the river by another raft. Queenstown Rafting was very organized and serious about safety and did a great job.

There was also tunnel rapids which is a 170m ride through the Oxenbridge Tunnel built by gold miners to help find more gold in the river (the plan did not go well, but now is fun for rafters!).

Overall, the trip was great and I'd love to do it again... though, I'm not sure I'd ever want to go on Skipper's Road again, at least not in a bus.

Later on we went up the Skyline Gondola to Bob's peak to get a great view of Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu, and the surrounding mountains. Though overcast, it was still beautiful. We also tried out the luge and it was a lot of fun.

From there we went back to Queenstown, got a bite to eat at Petite Cafe in Queenstown Mall, and then headed to Te Anau.

The next day we would be setting off to kayak Milford Sound... one of the best places in the world.

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