Queenstown

Friday 24 September

Another travelling day, we left Te Anau after a leisurely 7:15 wake-up and headed off for Queenstown, which is quite a short drive.  We skirted around Queenstown and went to Arrowtown for lunch, after having a look through the museum, which is quite a good one.  It’s an old gold mining area, so quite a lot of history in that line.

We also went out to the very popular bungee jumping operation and saw a couple of people having a jump.  I think it’s about as sensible as jumping out of a perfectly safe plane! 

Our hotel, the Mercure, is on the hillside above Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown, and the view from our room is spectacular.  There’s a pic on the Picasa gallery. 

Our dinner tonight was at Walter Peak Station, further down the lake, which we reached after a 45 minute voyage on the TSS Earnslaw, an old steam-driven boat.  Dinner was very good, an excellent buffet including roast lamb shanks with all the trimmings and many other things to choose from.

The voyage home included a sing-along which we enjoyed too, then home to bed in the room with a view.

Saturday 25 September

We had an early start today for breakfast before our four-wheel drive excursion to Skipper’s Canyon.  This was a great trip, up Skipper’s Canyon to the location of the old settlement of Skipper.  The district was a gold mining place, and was a very rich source of gold.  There is snow on all the hilltops around, and it was very spectacular.  Our driver, Wolfgang, told us a quite a lot about the history of the place, and was very interesting.  We passed the place Peter Jackson used for the Lord of the Rings scene where Arwen carries Frodo across the river to escape the Nazgul.  There were more locations around here, but that was the only one we saw from a reasonably close distance.

After the Skipper’s Canyon drive, we went on to a wine-tasting lunch and afternoon.  The region is famous for its pinot noir wines, and also produces some good white which I enjoyed, while Les was very happy trying the reds.

Dinner in the hotel tonight, a bar meal with a view across the lake.  It was very cold and started to rain again so we decided against going into town.

Daylight saving starts tomorrow, and we have a 6:00 am start, so it will be very early indeed!