Advertisement
Published: February 12th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Heading to Queenstown we called into Arrowtown, an old Gold town that seems to have retained some of its heritager and the buildings looked as if they would have done back in the day. We spent the evening strolling along the old street and parks and enjoyed a few drinks in the beer garden of "The Tap" the most Brisitsh of pubs yet! It was a fantastic place particularly because it was quiet which we understand during the day is quite different (read into that tourist buses again). Thankfully we missed them!
We had heard a lot about Queenstown, i.e. it being a real party town and perfect for adrenalin junkies but what we hadnt been prepared for was the beaurty of the setting nestled amongst the Remarkable mountains next to the deep blue Lake Wakatipu. The town itself lives up to its reputation and we foud one night of partying in an Irish bar and a cocktail bar where the cocktails are served in teapots quite enough for us, we are in our thirties you know! But we did have a perfect campsite just outside of town called Twelve Mile Delta, used in the Lord of the Rings to
portray Ithilien, where Sam saw his Oliphants.
We took a drive out to Kawarau river to view the canyon where people do the bungy jumping from the bridge, apparently Pillars of the Kings in Lord of the Rings although you had to use your imaginatiuon for this one (lots of CGI). We took the Gondola up to the skyline viewing platform and had a race down the luge, Lisa obviously knew what she was up against a bowed out of the second race on the advanced course (EKT experience coming to the fore there!)
For our relative adrenalin fixes we decided to do different things. Dave went with Vertigo bikes and took a downhill MTB ride through skippers canyon! They had two options, the full on-pack track built by the miners in the 1860's or the safer road route down, obviously went for the former with the safety briefing being if you are going to crash do it into the mountain not over the drop! we also did it twice!! Lots of sheer drops, mud splashes and water splashes it was great.
After I had recovered from this I decided to pop out on the Shotover Jet through
the Kawarau River canyon which we had viewed the previous day, they use impellor jet boats so they can go in only 4" of water and also can do lots of 360 deg spins, it was very impressive.
Lisa booked herself on a Milford Sound flight and boat cruise experience. This takes you over the incredible scenery of Fjordland and Mount Aspiring National Parks, to view swooping valleys, cascading waterfalls and alpine lakes otherwise hidden from the road. Then onto a boat where she saw yellow eyed penguins, dolphins and seals on Milford Sound itself and a return flight over Lake Wakatipu which completed an unforgettable day!
After all that excitement we decided to head to a more secluded part of Lake Wakatipu. After arriving at Glenorchy we saw a sign for paradise and just couldnt resist. The road was unsealed but that did not put us off as Dave said the road to paradise is never easy (boom boom)! However after seven fords we were beginning to change our minds, and also the Spaceship was wounded!! Leaking water we abandoned the final ford and moved onwards on foot and thankfully the journey was only about an hour.
Lisas experience from the Abel Tasman had taught us to time our shoes to our backpack and roll the shorts up, we arrived at the start of the Dart track (which is a 5 day hike) and completed the Chinamans Bluff section of the walk which was indeed extremely picturesque. We were tempted to continue but with no kit thought better of it and ventured back to the spaceship to get it back to Queenstown with lots of water from the glacial lakes (its now addicted to mineral water!)
We made it back to Queenstown, sorted out the car and headed to Fjordland!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.054s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0293s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb