Queenstown

Only took us about an hour to travel to Queenstown from Wanaka, our shortest journey so far on the South Island. This is the place a fair bit of filming was done on the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy and the Adventure capital of the world, containing the place of the first bungy jump aswell as the highest (i think) at Ben Nevis, 137 metres high from a cable car. Also there are skydives, white water rafting, paragliding, jet boats and of course great skiing in the winter on either Corenet Peak or The Remarkables (the backdrop to the battle in the final LOTR).

We arrived on the friday, checked in to our hostel and went straight to the Ben Lomond hill and travelled to the top via the cable cars, approx 850 metres up. From the top you had great views over Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu. As in Rotorua there was a Lugeing track, this time with just 2 tracks, simply fast and slow (scenic). The scenic route was ok but nothing special, however the fast track, having started slow suddenly turned the corner and dropped down 2 very steep hills and in to a fast corner, nearly chucking me off the Toboggan. Made it down safely, and then back to the top via a chair lift to do it all again.

Having been rudely awoken at 7.30am by some Italian guy talking as loud as he could on his mobile right outside my window, we decided to get up and climb Queenstown Hill (900 metres high) Firstly we had to walk up 2 streets which were 2 of the steepest streets i've ever encounted and we nearly decided at this point to turn back. We finally made it to the base of the hill and started our walk, which was fairly difficult and as we neared the summit it became as steep as the streets we had climbed below, but none the less we BOTH made it to the top, with Sonya desperately seeking oxygen and a lay down. Again the pain was worth it with views over the town and surrounding areas. Thankfully the decend down wasn't too bad. Sonya decided the least she deserved was a Kentucky Fried Chicken meal for her efforts, a meal well deserved. In th evening we decided to hit the town for a few beersand ended up at a place called The World Bar, where they serve you cocktails in TEAPOTS, which was pretty cool. So we decided to have a couple of pots (only seemed right) before staggering back to the hostel.

As Sonya was struggling with a hangover on the sunday morning we went for a game of Indoor Crazy Golf. 18 holes of some genius designs including Rockets that take off when you put through it and holes where your ball gets on a ski lift, taken to the top of the ski slope and then released to roll down and hopefully land somewhere near the hole. I won this hands down with Sonya blaming the hangover. So after her hangover cure of a McDonalds strawberry milk shake we just headed to the beach. We had also checked into a quieter hostel as the previous place seemed a bit of a young persons place and we like our sleep (age beginnig to show)

Theres still more, after a lie in, we went white water rafting down the Shotover River. Having got on all our gear (wetsuits, hats, life jackets etc) we were taken by coach to the beginnig of the trip. We went along a notorious stretch of road called Skippers Road which goes around the cliff edge a few hundred metres up and with nothing to stop you going over. One wrong decision by the driver and its all over, for good measure he wasn't going slowly either. We made it safely to the start (Sonya absolutely shit herself) got our instructions, got in our raft with our team and guide and off we went. about 2 mins in and we got stuck on a rock and couldn't move, great start. The rest of the ride down was quite strenuous of the body but great fun going over and down the rapids, nearly falling out on a few occasions. At one point, 2 of us got out the raft and went down the rapids clinging to the side of it. I caught by backside on a rock though which hurt a bit and made me decline the offer again of going in. After about 2 hours we made it to the last rapid where we had to go through a large dark hole in the mountain and come out straight down the biggest rapid on the otherside. Basically just hitting a wall of water but fantastic fun. We went back had a sauna warm shower and some free food and drink.

Finally on our last full day in Queenstown we went for a drive to Arrow Town, a very small but beautiful town with an old Chinese settlement which was used during the Gold mining days in the late 1800's and early 1900's. We then went up Deer Park Heights where they filmed some of the LOTR's. Finally having dropped Son off at the hostel i walked in to town to collect the photo's from the rafting trip and decided to walk back through the park, having watched some lads playing football, i went to walk over the bridge and bumped into a girl called Sam who had lodged with me 5 years ago, and hadn't seen or heard from since, and didn't even know she was living in Queenstown Very freaky. It was great to see her again and to find out she was now a resident in NZ living in Frankton (10 mins from Queenstown). After a bit of chatter and introducing her to Son, she invited us to have dinner and stay the night at at her house. We were introduced to her fiance Matt, who was a top bloke and he cooked us a great Thai chicken curry. We spent the evening chatting, catching up and finding out how great there new life was. It was also great to spend the night in a really comfy bed, and when we awoke in the morning, we had the view of The Remarkables right out of our window. (Thanks Sam and Matt). Unfortunately that was to be our last in Queenstown and after collecting our stuff from the hostel, we headed off to Dunedin.

Lee