Queenstown

View from our motel window in Queenstown

View of Queenstown from top of the cable car

View from our walk on Bob's Peak

Sunshine today but accompanied by a strong cold southerly wind, making it a jersey and jacket day. From one of our motel room windows, we could see Bob’s Peak and the top of the cable car in sunshine, so we headed there first. From the top we got fabulous views over Queenstown, Lake Wakapito and the surrounding mountains. Bright blue skies and wispy white clouds made it all very photogenic. From the top of the cable car we went on a short, 30 min, circular walk, pausing to watch people coming down the luge, then up through dense dark pine woods to a view of Ben Lomond, the mountain behind Bob’s Peak, and back to the top of the luge.

Not tea-trays on ice, the luge is go-karts on a concrete downhill track. Much to Aenea’s amazement, John volunteered to have a go and we have a photo to prove it. After that piece of excitement, we watched some people on the bungy swing. This is a variant on the classic bungy jump in which the participant swings horizontally as well as vertically. Insane but fun to watch.

John on chairlift up to the luge

John on the luge

Craft market in Queenstown

We took the cable car back down again (it was much too steep to walk down) and headed for a café that we had spotted the day before advertising free WiFi. Our Queenstown motel didn’t offer free WiFi and when we tried their pay-for service the performance was so bad there wasn’t a hope of being able to upload the blog pictures. So we spent a couple of hours over coffee and, in John’s case, a huge ice-cream, catching up with email and updating the blog. [Keeping the blog updated is now getting quite compulsive. I’ve noticed the entries are getting longer and the pictures more numerous. Am I joining the Facebook/Twitter generation I wonder.]

Bungy jumper at Kawarau Bridge

After our internet fix, we wandered around Queenstown and did some souvenir shopping. It was a glorious, sunny afternoon, though still cool, and we decided to drive out to Kawarau Bridge, where bungy jumping was first invented. It’s a picturesque old bridge, over the spectacular Kawarau Gorge, and has been restored using profits from the bungy jumping business. We watched several people take their first ever bungy jump which was very entertaining. Hats off to people for having the courage (insanity?) to do this. I think Hamish did this bungy jump when he was here. Not sure if I’d have wanted to watch that.

Arrowtown

We drove back to Queenstown through Arrowtown, another former gold-mining township that has retained its old buildings and character. Then it was dinner in a pub on the wharf, watching more rugby on the TV.