New Zealand - South Island - QUEENSTOWN

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Weeeeeeee have arrived in HEAVEN !! Oh my, the scenery and the accommodation. I'm speechless.

I will start with the scenery, absolutely breathtaking, I now have so many photos of what is around us, the light keeps changing so I take another. Every time I look out at the mountains, they change, the colour, the way they look and even the atmosphere. We had an enjoyable car ride to Queenstown, took about 5 hours on Highway 1 and 8, with a lunch stop in Alexandra which was lovely. We stopped off at another place called Arrowtown and had a look around, it was an old gold town in the 1800's, we passed so many winery's, so tempting to go in but had to get to our destination, anyway all along the way, beautiful amazing scenery, probably took us longer getting here because I kept getting out of the car to take photos. Stu was driving and I now know he is now confident on the roads as he was complaining about an old chap driving in front of us, moaning that he was holding up the traffic. I said 'what are you on about, we are the only one's on this road' !! We really were !! So we arrived in Queenstown and what a gorgeous place, this is what we always thought New Zealand was like. My photos do not do it justice, you have to be here to appreciate it. I am lost for words, I can't find any to describe it. We found our motel, oh my, we have struck gold, the view from our window is just astounding, infact the first photo I will put on is the view from our room. We went into our room and we were jumping for joy, pure luxury. Stu said 'this is a palace', OK, we are going over the top here, it is basic but we have our own kitchen, our own toilet and bath and a tv, flipin heck it's 5 STAR !! oh and a towel, a nice big white one, fluffy ! I am so excited, I'm going to have a beauty half hour, that's all I can do when on the ROAD !! I'm going to laze in the bath tub with a glass of wine !!! Oh and I'm going to eat some chocolate ! then I'm going to laze in the bed and look at my view.

So this afternoon we walked down to the town, we love it, very buzzy and trendy and lively and hot, (all winter woollies thrown in the wash, never to be used again !!), we have booked some tours, very excited about those, but will tell you about them once we have been out. It is about a 20 minute walk into town and a hefty hill up, but no complaining out of our mouths because we wouldn't have the view !

This afternoon we went up on the Gondola which was, if this makes sense, cos it doesn't to me, vertical rise - 450m (from 340m to 790m above sea level), length 730m, average incline 37.1, speed variable to 4m/sec, capacity - 1,100 visitors/hour. Ehhhhhhh, what's all that about ?? I asked Stu, he said he didn't know. But I think he can't be bothered to talk to me, cos he's on wi fi, so you work that one out cos I haven't got a clue, all I know it was blinkin high !! And at one point it stopped mid air and I started getting panicky but for once Stu was calm, mind you it was only a few seconds !!

We had the most amazing views, people were at the top of this mountain, bungy jumping, mountain cycling, go - carting and all this equipment was carried up by the gondolas and ski chairs.

So I will put some photos up, the ones in the beginning are what we were seeing on the road and the ones at the end are Queenstown and the views.

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Comments

[Wendy Newman]

NZ
All I can say is "stunning"!!! So,so beautiful,lucky blighters.x