The drive to Queenstown was amazing as we had a large blue lake on one side & the Remarkable mountain range on the other - spectacular!!
When we arrived in Queenstown we met Dave at the pub – typical meeting point :D and it wasn’t long before the boys were catching up. At this stage it was just Ev that had the bad cold.
Next morning Marc started to realise just how bad Ev felt the day before as he had suddenly come down with the flu that Ev was battling with. We dropped the car off in town, and Dave was nice enough to lend us his spare car while we were visiting.
We got our first sight of the beautiful town centre, which opens up onto the huge lake with the backdrop of mountains, and you catch your first glimpse of adrenaline sports with the jet boats picking up and dropping off, and helicopters occasionally whirring above. The small shop fronts are full of character, and you can see the gondolas going up the closest mountain.
Everywhere you look is stunning, and its so relaxing just to sit at a café by the lake and just watch the world go by… We stopped off for some breakfast, as our energy was low, then popped to the pharmacy to stock up on tissues and cough mixture – this soon became a regular trip for us during the upcoming week – then back to Dave’s…
Luckily Dave had internet (with the signal only strong enough from outside or by the kitchen sink ;) so we managed to do some blogging out in the sunshine when we had a little energy to spare.
For dinner we got some take outs and watched some telly – we must have been really entertaining for poor Dave… not – we really do hope he doesn’t catch our flu.
The week pretty much consisted of us sleeping, buying more drugs from the chemist (it costs $100pp to see the doctor and he wouldn’t be able to prescribe any antibiotics so we decided to spend the money on medicine instead), blogging, sleeping and blowing our noses! We were lucky with the weather, as it was beautiful clear blue skies for the whole week, so whilst we couldn’t do much, we could sit in the garden or hammock to relax and chat to the neighbour. One day we headed down to the lake to sunbath. There were a few families down here with their boats, playing with waterskis and rubber rings on the back of the boats.
Luckily Dave had internet (with the signal only strong enough from outside or by the kitchen sink ;) so we managed to do some blogging out in the sunshine when we had a little energy to spare.
For dinner we got some take outs and watched some telly – we must have been really entertaining for poor Dave… not – we really do hope he doesn’t catch our flu.
The week pretty much consisted of us sleeping, buying more drugs from the chemist (it costs $100pp to see the doctor and he wouldn’t be able to prescribe any antibiotics so we decided to spend the money on medicine instead), blogging, sleeping and blowing our noses! We were lucky with the weather, as it was beautiful clear blue skies for the whole week, so whilst we couldn’t do much, we could sit in the garden or hammock to relax and chat to the neighbour. One day we headed down to the lake to sunbath. There were a few families down here with their boats, playing with waterskis and rubber rings on the back of the boats.
View of Walters Peak
For dinner one night we managed to get out to town and get some Fern Burgers. Dave had been raving about them so we had to try them and boy were they big burgers. We didn’t have much of an appetite for the last few days so these burgers were a Godsend, yummy!! We ate these by the waterfront and we had little birds chirping around us eating crumbs off the table. We even got to hand feed them – just too cute!
We wanted to do walking around the parks and hills, and explore some of the nearby towns. We also wanted to do some of the adrenaline sports such as jetboating, canyoning, maybe skydiving or bungee, white water rafting and the luge.
Whilst we couldn’t do this, Dave took time out to show us a few sights. One evening he took us for a drive up the Remarkables Mountain range in his 4x4 as the other car probably wouldn’t have made it up the gravel track. We had great views over the town and Dear Park Heights, and we watched the sunset over the lake. There was a camper van up here – there can’t be many better places to spend the night!! We can definitely see why he has chosen to move here from Ringwood as there is so much character and amazing scenery here, and he gets to see if every day from his front door!
The Remarkables
When we felt a little better we booked ourselves on the Earnshaw steamboat and joined in on the tour of the boat on the way over to the sheep farm at Walters Peak. Here we got to see some deer and highland cows. The tour guide was really funny but spoke as if he was being serious, so most of the Japanese tourists believed every word he was saying, as they didn’t understand his sarcasium.
We then got treated to scones, muffins, tea and juice whist we sat on the patio overlooking the lake in a really beautiful house. This was just fantastic. Afterwards we got to see the sheep dog round up some sheep and then the farmer showed us how to sheer a sheep, all the while keeping a witty dialogue going.
As we were still feeling okay we joined Dave for dinner and then went on to the Frankton Arms (Dave’s local) for a few drinks, but we soon realised that we weren’t feeling as good as we thought and only managed one drink :( We had really hoped to go out for a few sessions with Dave but with this flu we couldn’t manage much.
Dave had gone out rowing in the morning (Saturday) so round lunchtime he picked us up and took us for a drive through Skippers Canyon. This was really great and scary at the same time as it was a sheer drop down the side of the dirt track running along the cliff face. Not to mention when another 4x4 came along in the opposite direction, there wasn’t much space to manoeuvre round. You can only visit this route in a 4x4 and hire cars aren’t allowed!!
Dave had gone out rowing in the morning (Saturday) so round lunchtime he picked us up and took us for a drive through Skippers Canyon. This was really great and scary at the same time as it was a sheer drop down the side of the dirt track running along the cliff face. Not to mention when another 4x4 came along in the opposite direction, there wasn’t much space to manoeuvre round. You can only visit this route in a 4x4 and hire cars aren’t allowed!!
We made our way to the valley floor and got to see the river (milky blue of course) where they filmed the scene from LOTR where Arwen takes Frodo across the river whilst being chased by the Black riders.
We then headed on to a little spot by an old school come museum; across a really weak looking wooden bridge for a picnic. You can’t believe that people used to live out here, as it’s so isolated. In the winter the road must be impassable by car, let alone horse and cart. Dave has been really great this past week and packed a lovely picnic for us to have.
Dave then took us to the graveyard that they have out here and showed us a few of the plaques on the wall where they mention the cause of death. Some of these were quite funny like “died whist trying to dry out TNT over the fire” and “shot himself whilst temporarily insane (drunk)”.
To end our day we had a BBQ back at Dave’s and got chatting to the owner of the house (Brian) who was also having a BBQ with some of his guests. Brian told us how he travelled to England and whilst driving on the motorway thought that the cars drove a lot faster as he was only doing 100km/hour but after a while he realised that he was in fact doing 100mph!
Our last full day in Q’town we all got up a little late and had brunch in town. Whilst not fully recovered, we had to see some of the sights, so booked a tour to Doubtful Sound. We also booked a car for our onward journey as we had our schedule to keep. We want to stay for longer though ;(
After brunch, it started raining so instead of going up the gondola and doing the luge (type of go-kart) we went and did some indoor mini-golf. This was good fun as the theme was based on the surrounding areas so you had one hole that was a ski-lift replica and another being a castle. We had some really good laughs here and on the final hole, and an hour later, we got a free lolly! With our entrance ticket we also got a free cold drink so we drank this whilst chatting about the game we just played.
To end our day we had a BBQ back at Dave’s and got chatting to the owner of the house (Brian) who was also having a BBQ with some of his guests. Brian told us how he travelled to England and whilst driving on the motorway thought that the cars drove a lot faster as he was only doing 100km/hour but after a while he realised that he was in fact doing 100mph!
Our last full day in Q’town we all got up a little late and had brunch in town. Whilst not fully recovered, we had to see some of the sights, so booked a tour to Doubtful Sound. We also booked a car for our onward journey as we had our schedule to keep. We want to stay for longer though ;(
After brunch, it started raining so instead of going up the gondola and doing the luge (type of go-kart) we went and did some indoor mini-golf. This was good fun as the theme was based on the surrounding areas so you had one hole that was a ski-lift replica and another being a castle. We had some really good laughs here and on the final hole, and an hour later, we got a free lolly! With our entrance ticket we also got a free cold drink so we drank this whilst chatting about the game we just played.
As it was still raining we decided that it wasn’t wise to do the luge & gondola so we headed off to Arrowtown, another LOTR location where we had a drink at one of the pubs. There were a few people doing gold panning in the shallow river, and Dave was telling us about his dad who did the gold panning for a whole day, and his only reward was his legs covered in sandfly bites ;) We decided to look into accommodation for the Doubtful Sounds, as it was a long drive we either had to leave Q’town at 8.30 in the morning or drive there tonight. And with a long drive the day after the tour we decided to drive down to Doubtful sound tonight.
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