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After the tinkling drops and then heavy rain the night before, we woke to a clear, brilliant blue cloudless sky with not a breath of wind. The Mount Aspiring range looked splendid and it was hard to pull ourselves away, we both fell in love with Wanaka, but onward we go - to Queenstown! Very little driving today, it was a mere 70k from Wanaka to Queenstown, not the long distances we've become accustomed too and so there was little seen albeit the wonderful scenery - to share with you.
We decided to drive to Queenstown over the Crown Range (the old route), the sat nav said 'drive 70km and turn right' and so we did! It was a lovely drive through mountainous countryside, we were quite high up so the mountains didn't appear as huge and we passed the Cardrona ski fields and pondered on this warm sun baked countryside being covered in cold and freezing snow - much like the UK at the moment. Oops - SORRY! However readers you may be pleased to hear that we weren't rewarded with the views we were anticipating towards the end of our journey as there was a lot of very low cloud obscuring the amazing view that we glimpsed tantalisingly through gaps in the cloud as we descended. A pause in Arrowtown for coffee and a look around and thought it is very much like a smaller version of Niagara-on-the-Lake, pretty and quaint and then on we drove to Queenstown.
We checked in to our functional but extremely well located camper-park home for the next three nights. Its right underneath the para-gliding take-off point, the Queenstown bungy and the Gondola cable car -so we're hoping to hear some screams from the jumpers at some point whilst at the same time hoping no cars fall off the Gondola!
We decided to ride the Queenstown Gondola and enjoyed its magnificent views over Lake Wakapitu and Glenorchy (tomorrows expedition), absolutely beautiful, we stood and gawped for ages, and then watched the luge riders start their journey's 'extreme' and 'gentle' downhill runs (looked fun!), whilst noting from a signpost that London is over 18,000km away - further than any other place, and then stood open mouthed as a plane taking off from Queenstown airport turned towards the mountains and seemed to fly straight at them but thankfully didn't. After descending we mooched around town looking for gifts, re-stocked on Glacier blister supplies (maybe get some shoes on tomorrow), ate a delicious ice-cream on the pebbly beach in the sun (and keen cool breeze) and made arrangements to meet up with Chris and John (Chris is a travel companion from Shirl's 2009 Compassion trip to Ethiopia) for a drink in town later. Dinner was fish and chips (Brill deep fried in batter - sacrilege!) from a cabin on the lake shore recommended to us by a couple we spoke to at a view point on our journey in North Island, and they were right - delicious!
We had a lovely evening with Chris and hubby John - swapping traveller's tales and tips and so on Fab! So all in all yet another amazing day, and many more adventures lie ahead of us to be discovered J
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