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Published: November 30th 2012
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Queenstown
The Remarkable Mountain Range is the distance; Used by Jackson as the Misty Mountains in the Hobbit Movie Our next stop was Queenstown, the adrenaline junky hotspot of the South Island and we stayed three nights on Moke Lake, a ten minute drive out of town. The weather was fantastic and we fitted in a couple of walks as well as enjoying QT centre with its hustle and bustle of bars and cafes and beautiful views of the Remarkables and Wakatipu Lake.
After spending our first day walking, eating veggie pies, sitting in the sun and drinking corona we decided it was time for white water rafting and we were both well excited! No one told us that to get to the start of the rapids on the Shotover River we would have to travel on one of the world’s most dangerous roads! Can you believe it?! It was absolutely terrifying, I didn't actually see how bad the road was, but judging by everyone's reaction it was bad. Paul squeezed my sweaty little mitts and told me to keep my eyes tightly shut until we had made it safely off Skippers Canyon Road. Anyway, because I was shaking and in a horrible state of shock the rafting safety brief went in one ear and out the other and
somehow I ended up at the back of the raft, yes the worst place to be and before I knew it we were floating down the river. The Shotover is truly a beautiful stretch, crystal clear glacial waters, blue skies and mountain peaks. Soon enough we were on the first rapids and I nearly fell in! Poor Paul, I think he has spent most of our trip worrying about me and this was no exception, he kept turning around to make sure I was OK and still in the raft! We spent 3 hours on the river and it flew past, most of the rapids were grade 3/4 and the last one a 5. As we approached it, through a dark tunnel in the rocks we were instructed to keep down and turn to the right to lessen the chance of broken noses and capsizing! I honestly thought we had too; I'm sure I was half in the water, but, by some miracle (I think down to our instructor and Paul righting us) we managed to stay upright and finished the trip with big grins and that great feeling of euphoria! It was such a buzz and we had a
Rafting fun
I am at the bottom left trying to stay in - Paul is second in from the top right trying to stop us from tipping over! great time, we also got a free shower which we desperately needed!
On our last day we did a circular walk around Mt Crichton and the twelve mile creek gorge, showing us the sites of the old gold mining times. It was a cool refreshing forest walk with great views once we reached the top.
After our standard lunch of peanut butter sarnies we headed towards Lake Wanaka and spent a night camped next to Lake Hawae. We arrived in time to enjoy the afternoon sun with a book and a bottle of Passion fruit cider before having spicy courgette pasta for dinner, how we aren't sick of pasta yet I have no idea!
Onwards we went to Lake Wanaka and we loved it, so much quieter than busy QT. It was chilled out, sunny, calm and just perfect. We did our best walk/tramp/hike to date, 4 hours up Rocky Mountain, really quite hard and were rewarded with another beautiful view and luckily I didn't fall off a bridge and into a ditch this time otherwise it might have been fatal!
After another free night in The Hoff we decided it was
time for a wash and booked into a fab campsite in the town. We made full use of the amenities: long hot showers, fully charging all the gadgets, we even fitted in a Skype call with Lu and Mike, had a dip in the free hot tub with an icy glass of wine and did a rough plan for our time in Fiji!
We headed off to the west coast and found it wild and rugged and it was scary seeing the expanse of the roaring ocean, we felt really insignificant and vulnerable. The driftwood on the beaches was out of this world, tons of it, even whole trees stacked on top of each other, Paul commented how there was lots of money to be made and if only our coast produced the same treasure!
We found ourselves walking in the rain to the mouth of Fox glacier, not much to say, a big bit of ice! We stayed a couple of nights on Gillespie's beach, did a 4 hour walk that was more like a gorge trek with the promise of seeing a seal colony. There were no seals at the end of the boggy
walk and we tramped back the way we came.
We saw a great sunset from the beach with mount cook behind us which was pretty special and on our way out the next day called by Lake Matherson, did the quick hour walk around it and set off north to Abel Tasman, stopping along the way at Punakaiki to see the pancake rocks and blow holes; new Zealand's answer to the twelve apostles.
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