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Published: July 21st 2006
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View from Queenstown hill
We went for a little tramp up a very steep hill, well worth it for this view! Lovely lovely sunshine! So we left Wanaka behind, Tom's flu was clearing up nicely (now only a severe cough), and off through the frosty hills and valleys towards Queenstown. A great little drive, surrounded by mountains and steep sided valleys with a torrent of water sweeping by at the bottom of each - beautiful.
On a damp Saturday afternoon Queenstown was a surprisingly pretty, entertaining kind of a town. Like Wanaka there was a huge lake and mountains caked in snow, but in the NZ capital of adventure there was also an endless list of things to do which could almost kill you from bungee jumping, to skydiving, to sitting in a jet rocket attached to a wire swinging through a mountain valley at high speed! ...After avoiding a flea pit of a hostel with the baldest carpets I've ever seen, we settled on a place by the cable car and rested our aching skiing limbs.
Next day to ease ourselves into the adrenalin that is Q’town we played a spot of crazy golf in some gorgeous sunshine (Tom won of course) and then it was onto luging. Cable car up to the top of a mountain overlooking the town, a quick
Liz somewhere over the southern alps
I actually didn't realise Mike was taking these photos and I was a lot more scared than I look, unlike Tom I declined to take a turn in control.. intake of breath at the fantastic view, and then we spent the next couple of hours luging down the hill and catching the chairlift back up. Luging is like a go-kart without an engine - great fun, just whizzing down the hill round hairpin bends and through tunnels.
A trip to the Ice Bar the next night was a good way to remind ourselves that it was still winter. For two strong vodka cocktails in your own glass made of ice, you and a Japanese family are shut in this smallish room chilled below freezing. The one banging to get out the door first loses, the one who survives the longest against the cold and finishes his drink without the glass freezing to his lips wins an all expenses paid trip to Disneyland...nah it wasn't that bad! They let us have coats and gloves to stave off the cold and there were lots of pretty well-lit ice sculptures to look at and ice seats covered in deerskin to sit on. I suppose this is what it's like for the North Pole Eskimos on a typical Saturday night in their local igloo pub? Mmmmm the vodka was quite tasty too.
luge lift
The luge track is right at the top of a hill overlooking Qtown The best hangover cure is to be on the top of a sunny mountain skiing. The ice bar was followed by a few with our Ozzie friends Shane & Lorna from the Wanaka B&B. With the sun shinning, our vision/co-ordination not at our best, Liz was coaxed onto the blue runs for the first time. Coronet Peak was a little lower than Cardrona in Wanaka so the snow was more at the melting stage, it was still great to ski but to add to the fun the odd bit of rock was showing through. A good place to end our 5 days of skiing, Tom in that time had progressed to jumping over things and nearly landing on his feet, whilst Liz could 'board down a mountain without falling over on her head. Neat!
To round off the (not so) adrenalin filled week skydiving was on the cards. However our excuse for the lack of near death experiences in Q’town was that over successive days we were unable to jump out of plane because of too much wind, rain, cloud etc and so it never happened. Instead on the last day we went paragliding off the Rewmarkables peak.
With one eye on the weather (in the space of half an hour there was heavy wind, rain, blue sky, snow and then blue sky) and the other eye on the sheer drop which the minibus could slip into at any time, we arrived at the top and got kitted out. In a minor snowstorm we donned our sexy brightly covered overalls with extra padding on the belly (used for landing) and got strapped in to the thing along with the instructor. The next bit happened really quickly, you start by running along the ground and then because you're concentrating so much on running you don't notice the ground disappear and like in the cartoons you end up running for a bit in mid air just to kid yourself that you're still on the ground. The experience is then a mixture of fun, awe at the beauty of below and sheer fear of falling to your death. Within a couple of minutes Tom was handed the controls and instructed to pull the bar close to his belly and swing his hips to the right. The glider dropped like a stone spinning to the right, during which Tom gritted his teeth
High speed luging
These little things are called luges, pretty speedy and lots of fun and produced a smile which was a weird mix of joy and fear. After a few moments Tom then pushed the bar forward and swung his hips to the right to level the thing off. A few more of these manoeuvres and it was time to land. Up until then I think both of us have never landed at speed on our bellies in a muddy field, but hey there's a first for everything and I'd definitely do it again!
The flight back to Welly gave us a chance to see the Southern Alps in all its glory and Qantas being the generous sort gave us complementary cups of water...Back in the capital now enjoying the wind and rain storm severely battering the office windows, I believe it's the hottest day ever in the UK today? Perhaps I should bottle this weather and post it back to you lot! All the best ‘till next time.
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