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Published: April 2nd 2008
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Hello everyone! We finally arrived in Queenstown a beautiful place where there is always tons to do!
After we got there we went for a nice walk around town and the lakefront, and had a look at what kind of activities we wanted to do whilst we were in Queenstown.
The next day we went for a walk in the Remarkables ski fields which sit high up above lake Wakatipu and Queenstown. From the ski field car park, we walked an hour up into the mountains to Lake Alta, where stopped for a very scenic picnic lunch, and got an amazing view out over the Shotover valley, Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu. Upon our descent back into town, we went to book our activity for the following day.
The next day (which incidentally was gloriously beautiful and sunny) we got up early and were driven to Glenorchy about 45 mins north of Queenstown at the very northern tip of the lake. There we suited up in wetsuits and lifejackets, and borded our transport up the Dart River. Only our transport travelled at 80 km/h on water - a jet boat. We had quite an amazing journey, about an hour upstream of
weaving from one path of the river to another, and every so often spinning 360 at top speed, completely soaking us all in the back! Even at time across rocky patches if the water wasn't deep enough! After an hour we reached our lunch picnic spot, a beautiful spot next to the river with the forest and moutains surrounding us. That was until the sandflies came to join us!! We were both eaten alive a bit during our lunch (though we didn't care as we didn't realise until later in the day when we got changed!). After lunch we blew up our funyaks(inflatable rubber canoes) and then paddled on down the Dart river for the next few hours, visiting the occasional little sidestreams. It was a lot trickier than it seemed, and after one couple capsized within 5 mins, everyone was a little worried. Still, after a lot of "Left!! Left!!... No! Right!! Right!!" we manged to get down the river without capsizing which was a grand effort! The place where we had arrived to was aptly named Paradise (after the local Paradise Ducks found on the river there, though it was truly beautiful as well!) After deflating our funyaks
we boared a 4WD driver bus, that had to negotiate getting back across half of the river from where it picked us up to even reach the riverbank. We then took a scenic drive back to Glenorchy and the base, passing the film set for 'Wolverine' (the latest X-Men film) and many locations for Lord of the Rings. We arrived back at our hostel exhausted, but it was an amazing day! Definately recommend it to anyone that goes to Queenstown!
The following day we headed up to another local ski field in search of more mountain walks, but alas it was closed for maintenance work for the new season, so after a quick photo of the view, we continued on to Arrowtown - famous for being the centre of the New Zealand goldrush in the 1860s. Amazingly the town has not changed radically from then, other than the cars and campervans on the roads instead of the horse and carts! We visited the local museum that had an interesting recreation of the a typical street during the time, complete with schoolhouse, printery, joinery shop, farm shed and butcher/baker.
Later in the afternoon we headed back to town and
to the nearby Kiwi Birdlife park. 2 guesses what the main attraction was! We finally saw the infamous Kiwis for ourselves. They are housed in the pitch black houses with very low dim lighting, so it takes a full 5 mins for your eyes to adjust and not walk into the walls and other people! They had the North Island Brown Kiwi, probably the most widely spread nowadays.
We then headed to a local favourite FergBurgers for a taste of what we were apparently missing! Imagine McDonalds, but with the burgers about 4 times the size, and cooked freshly in front of you. Yumm! It was a real effort though and we both struggled walking back to the hostel!!
The next day we took the Skyline Gondola up to the peak above the town, and were rewarded with wonderful views back down to the town, and over the lake. Not only was there just a nice view, but also a luge there as well. Essentially a go cart without a motor, we raced downhill around the track a few times, which was good fun, and had a nice drink in the sun in the afternoon with a view over
the lake, watching the bunjee jumpers and the paragliders throw themselves off the hill!
That's about it for Queenstown... we then headed on to the west coast, stopping briefly in Wanaka on our way. More to come...
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