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Published: October 14th 2007
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Queenstown
The Remarkables mountain range QUEENSTOWN
The drive to Queenstown was absolutely gorgeous although I did at one point think we were never gonna get there! Our wee car is just the worst, it can barely make the hills. We have to drive up them in first gear and switch the hazards on so the car behind knows we are having difficulty. A couple of times we have just came to a complete stop and its a bit nerve-racking when your on a bend but we are getting by.
We are staying in the Black Sheep hostel and us girls are very excited as we are not sharing with the boys tonight which means no snoring!!! Yey!!! I haven't had a big problem with the snoring as my ear plugs stay in all night but poor Jenny is tearing her hair all most of the time :-)
Today we drove to Glenorchy which is about an hours drive away from Queenstown and has lovely views. We had lunch there, with the 3 boys having tea and chocolate cake and us girls having fish and chips. A bit of role reversal there?
So Queenstown is supposed to be the party capital of New Zealand but
tonight the girls are having an early night as we are going to Milford Sound tomorrow morning and getting picked up at 7.30am. The boys are also going on this trip but have choosen to go to the pub as they are not as sensible as us :-) John and Padraigs' friend Paul has joined us from Dunedin so there are now 6 of us.
MILFORD SOUND
Milford Sound is really an awe-inspiring place, you really need to see it to believe it. The Lord of the Rings was filmed here in some parts. Its a bit of a nightmare to get there right enough. Its a 14 hr round trip so we were very stiff by the time we got off the bus at 10pm! We arrived in Milford at 2pm and then went on a boat trip for 2hrs out to sea. It was beautiful, lots of waterfalls with rainbows. The mountains rise right up out of the fiord, simply breath taking. There were a couple of other boats out on the water and as you will see from the pictures, they look tiny compared to mountains, small white shiny specks.
On arriving back at
the hostel at 10pm we had a quick change and headed out into town to see what the night life is like. We went to a couple of pubs and then onto a nightclub which was busy but not as crazy as everyone makes it out to be. I guess it is still spring though and it will probably be heaving soon enough. The place is full of skiers at the moment and we had to laugh every time we went into a pub as some people still had on their ski hats and goggles. Apparently this is the fashion over here and they all think they look cool!
I went on the skyline gondola which took me high up into the mountains with great views over Queenstown and the surrounding areas. There is also The Ledge bungy jump from here which looks crazy. You have a huge platform and people just take a big run and throw themselves off!
Irene has a couple of friends who live here so they took us on a pub crawl on Sunday night. We tried a lot of the bars in town including the Boiler Room which is right next door to
the Ice Bar. We wanted to go in for a drink but it is really expensive, you have to pay an entrance fee aswell and then dress up in fur coats with hats and gloves etc as everything is made of ice including the tables and chairs. The Boiler Room was nice and cosy and had windows which look right into the Ice Bar so we just made do with a look from a more comfortable position :-)
On leaving Queenstown we stopped on a whim at Kawaura Bridge which is the site of the worlds first commercial bungy jump. I have no idea what possessed me to jump but a split second decision saw me dangling by my ankles over this bridge, 43 metres high!! I was petrified and clinging to the guy for dear life as i was sure he was going to push me. They are not allowed to push you as the idea of it is to challenge yourself to jump of your own accord. I had the choice of getting dunked in the water but since it was my first time i thought i'd better not. Ive never screamed so much in my life but
Milford Sound
beautiful rainbows it was such a great feeling that i just wanted to get right back up there and do it again. I felt like i could do anything after it, the adrenaline rush was amazing. The other 5 guys thought i was crazy and noone could be persuaded to join me :-)
So that was Queenstown. We stopped at the the Cardrona Hotel on the way out of Queenstown for fresh scones with jam. It is the oldest hotel in New Zealand and had an old vintage car outside so we all hopped in there for a photoshoot. We are now heading over to Dunedin where the boys are living. John goes back to work as he only had the week off. Padraig is still bumming around like us as he has just arrived from Ireland so we will have our own personal guide there which is a bonus. On to Dunedin...........
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