Another day in Queenstown

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Today was a lay day which involved doing laundry, and wrestling with computers. Nothing seemed to work today, a washing machine which failed to wash was fail number 1. We had another attempt, success; dried the load and then walked into town around midday to find free wifi and coffee.
Success with Starbucks, easy to use internet with seemingly no limit. Could not copy and paste correctly from notes into my blog no matter what I did, the whole text twice landed in the subject line, requiring backspace being held for what seemed like eternity. But eventually I tricked it into behaving and managed to load a blog. Next computer issue Martin's camera. He is a snap happy boy and has managed to fill his memory card in his camera. So find a place to transfer said pics into my USB stick. Found place and twice managed to get to the end of the upload only to be told my USB stick was full and Picture Wizard was cancelling the whole operation! Some wizard! So delete some files and third time lucky 'twas done! Food court found, nice Japanese and Turkish food choices, pics deleted off camera and all is well. Queenstown by day is restaurants, shops and people looking cool. So many Japanese and Chinese people around who must fly direct into Queenstown international airport for this holiday. Most staff in shops and cafes seem to be ESL speakers, huge multicultural mix. We wandered along, the foreshore, and watched the TSS Earnslaw coming back in, which is a steam powered propellor driven ship launched in 1912, still running both for passenger trips and real mail runs.Wandering in the opposite direction along the foreshore we found the botanical gardens, a walk around the lake to South Bay, ice skating, a bowls club with enviable views and a Disc Golf. Think frisbees with golf rules and holes that look like chain mail rubbish bins. A statue commemorating William Rees is in the gardens. He is the founder of Queenstown, discovering the lake in 1860. He brought over his wife and sheep and tried to make a living but the gold miners and associated shanty dwellers who came in 1862 drove him away to Frankton and by 1867 he had left permanently. A lovely commemorative garden lies near the rose garden remembering locals who have died in mountaineering accidents. A local legion is about the Maori woman Manata who they say is responsible for the heartbeat effect of the lake. The lake rises and falls by 300mls several times a day, this area is not tidal, there is no real explanation for this effect. And to finish a grand day we stumbled across a lovely Irish pub, Pog Mahones, down near the wharves. Great live Irish music, Killkenny, views, cheese board, what more could you want.

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