All about Queenstown and the surrounding areas

---

Queenstown what a city, it's definitely our favourite town so far. We love it, it has everything for everyone here. If you are an adrenalin junkie then you would be hard pushed not to find something every day of the week to get your heart pulsing. There is skydiving, bungy jumping, jet boating, rafting, mountain biking, paragliding after all that there is tramping, horse riding, quad bikes, boat trips and of course in the winter months there is skiing, the list is endless. If you have any money left after doing all these and your pockets are very deep then there are helicopter, hot air balloon trips and plane rides so that you can take in all the vistas. Amongst all these activites is a town with a real buzz to it. There are some lovely restaurants and bars, live music on in most of them as well as in the streets and a massive amount of variety which you can't help but be impressed with. The town is surrounded by mountains and the backdrop to Queenstown is the mountain range known as the Remarkables, they look fabulous all the time with the sun shining on them, we never get tired of looking at them. We can only imagine how majestic they will look in a couple of months full of snow and skiers racing around on them. I suppose Queenstown's claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of the commercial bungy jump. There are several different jumps that you can do from launching yourself off the lower platforms in central Queenstown to leaping from a bridge and being doused by water or then there is the highest one a few miles out of town, can't remember how high up you are but I do know that you are free falling for 8 seconds which sounds like a very long time to me. Sure it would feel more like 8 hours!!

Day out in the car and off to visit a place called Arrowtown, it's a lovely little town with many historic buildings, looks like something out of the Wild West really. It was made famous in the gold rush of the 1860's as the little river that runs through the town was rich with alluvial gold. This attracted gold hunters from all over the world but predominately it attracted Chinese miners who set up home on the river banks, there were around 8000 workers which is hard to imagine for such a small town but they built huts and shops of their own, these have now been preserved and you can wander around them reading about the history and the effect it had on the town. You can also buy a pan and test tube and go panning for gold in the river if you want, I did ask Baz to get down there and find us a huge nugget but he wasn't for wading in and rummaging around under the rocks! We did a walk along the riverbank for a couple of hours which was lovely as the trees are just turning yellow and the colours are fantastic. Arrowtown is also known for its deciduous trees in the autumn and although we were a little early for all the changing colours it still looked lovely. Back in the car and off to Wanaka which is a larger town and set next to Lake Wanaka. Another town surrounded by beautiful views and it's own national park. We wandered around the town and sat and had a beer at one of the many bustling bars and took in the vista. The drive to Wanaka from Queenstown is absolutely awesome, it goes over the Alpine route which takes in a lot of ski resorts so as you can imagine the views are amazing, included in these are Mt Cardrona and Mt Pisa.

Today we have bought tickets to go on the gondola up the hill and lunch at the Stratosfere restaurant. It was a fab ride up and very steep. When we got to the top there is a viewing platform to check out the views over Queenstown which were immense. There is also a bungy jump up there, a luge which are like little go carts racing down a track, paragliding and loads of mountain bikers heading down the mountain. We took our photos and headed in for lunch which was a four course buffet, it was ok, lots of choice but a bit canteenish. We took our wine and chilled out watching all the activities on the mountain side. We spent quite a few hours up there and really enjoyed it, another fab day.

Tramping day today, we have been to Lake Hayes. It is a smaller lake and we did the walk around it which we estimated to be about 5 miles, not very long but the sun was shining and the lake was like glass and reflected the mountains and trees in it. Spectacular.

Just discovered that my darling husband has a bit of a problem, he is a cleptamaniac. He is renowned for being one for a bargain and owt for nowt but I think having secured and hidden 28 bars of soap in his wash bag cos they were free is a bit much. He may be clean and smell gorgeous but I don't think that we need the extra weight on the plane, definitely not paying for extra baggage allowance due to stolen goods!!!

Well we have been out and about on the road again today. Drove over to Glenorchy which is where they filmed a lot of The Lord of the Rings. Not being a fan of the films and having only endured part of the first one I don't know whether we saw any of the bits where they filmed but as usual the scenery was fantastic even on a very cloudy windy day. The mountain range was fabulous although partly in cloud and we saw a massive glacier named Margaret's Glacier (don't know what Margaret did to get a glacier named after her, perhaps she was a bit of an ice maiden!) anyway after a quick blowy walk through the small town we got back in the car and headed down a long unmade bumpy road to a place called Paradise. We thought how could you not visit a place called Paradise but after about 20km of bone shaking teeth chattering buttock clenching driving, oh and a fast flowing ravine across the road we did a u turn! It may have been Paradise on a nice sunny day but alas not so today! Apparently a must do in Queenstown is to have a Ferg burger, I think they are quite famous around these parts, anyway so off we went to give it a go. I have to say they are massive and not really being a burger fan we decided to share one, we went for the lamb burger as we are in NZ, it was very tasty and filling. It attracts a queue a mile long at every time of the day and the waiting times just to get to the door can be an hour, when in there you can even buy a pair of under pants with I luv Ferg on them! Obviously world renowned!

Good Friday today, happy Easter. Today we have been on the lake in the T.S.S Earnslaw , a coal fired steamer built in 1912 to ferry sheep and passengers from the isolated communities. She is in tip top condition and has a saloon lounge area with a grand piano in and on the way back we were passed out song sheets and had a sing song. We were not very good but hey oh when in Rome!!! The trip across the Lake took about 45 minutes and when we got to the other side we were met by a farm hand who showed us around the area and told us of the history of the place and how today's farming has drastically changed. We hand fed Red Deer, Sheep, Alpacas and a rather friendly long tongued Highland Bull. We then went into the house for afternoon tea comprising of little cakes and homemade scones with jam and clotted cream. Delicious and of course they tasted even better as we were sitting on the veranda in the sunshine surrounded by blooms of every colour. Then off we went to watch a demonstration by the chap with his sheep dogs rounding up the sheep and herding them towards us. This was surprisingly good and fascinating to watch how the dogs instantly responded to his commands. Then is was sheep shearing, it looked a bit haphazard and he did say that he must have picked on a very grumpy sheep but when you think that the professional shearers can shear upto 400 sheep a day it's incredible. Back to the boat and a good sail back to Queenstown. Today has been a very busy vibrant sunny day for the town. The population for the day seems to have quadrupled and there was a chap singing and stalls all set up in the centre of town. Good vibe made better by fab weather. We just love it so much we have extended our stay until Wednesday. Bring it on!!

---