Queenstown

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On our first day we had a wonder around town and got a feel for the place, James immediately loved it and we booked our activities for the next few days.

The next day James got up to do the Shotover Jet. This jet boat goes down the Shotover River in between canyons, doing 360 spins. The river was only 4 degrees so luckily no one got wet! After my near death experience on the first one in Taupo i refused to go but James said it wasn't as good as the on in Taupo but good fun! In the afternoon we went River Surfing which is basically white water rafting with no rafy and a body board instead! Thank God this was not in the Shotover River, but a slightly warmer one! The guide taught us some tricks at the start and then we headed off to our first rapid... it seemed pretty scary at the time but after waht we did at the end it seemed like nothing! The whole river was graded rapids 3-4 so it was as violent as the ones we rafted over! The was also a 'surf' rapid where you turn your board upstream and try and catch a wave as if your surfing. James was the first one in the group to do it, but we voth did it in the end! It was a really weird feeling because it felt like we were moving really fast but in fact we weren't moving at all because we were facing upstream... it was really good fun. The last rapid was called 'The Chinese Dogleg' a grade 4 rapid... it was really scary, all we could see was white water! In this rapid there was what they call a 'hole' where if you go through it you'll lose your board and go for a spin underwater... of course James was the one to go through this and have a bit of a dunk and a tumble!!

We were exhaused the next day and all our muscles were sore so we went on a Steamship cruise accross the lake, it was nice to see all around Queenstown, but we were the only ones under 60! Later that day we went to the Skyline Gondola and Luge. We had 3 goes each on the luge which was great fun, but not as long as the one in Rotorua. In the evening we went to Winnie Bagoes, a gourmet pizza bar apparently and James got so stuffed he couldn't sleep all night!!

Horse riding was cancelled in the end so that evening we went to the minus 5 Ice Bar and the famous Fergburger for supper.

We've really loved Queenstown, its really vibrant with loads to do... sadly no bungy jumping for sky diving for us, even though I did seriously think about it!! Pictures for the last 2 blogs will be up as soon as we can.

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Photos

Queenstown 1
From the top of the Gondola

Queenstown 3
From the steam boat cruise

The Bar
Completely made of ice

Comments

[nick]

rapids
YEEEHAAAAA sounds fantastic, hang on to your hat Kimmy and stop eating Jim !! x