So here we are in Queenstown; the place that promises to part you with your money as soon as possible! It seems like a fun town though. We are staying at the Creeksyde Holiday park which is pretty much right in town (about 7 min walk to get you right down town. It's expensive but handy.
We didn't do much our first day- just wandered around downtown a bit and road the Gondola up the mountain. At the top they have luge rides. You take a chair lift up a bit farther then take a little cart down one of two tracks. Pretty fun. We got our first ride in then it started to snow.It's amazing how fast the weather changed up there. When we first got up there was a great view of Queenstown. By the end, all you could see was white. Snow was perfect for snowballs! We tried to get our 2nd luge ride in but the track was filled with snow and we had to abandon it. They gave us another ticket to get back up and finish our rides another day, which was nice.
We had originally planned to go skiing, but it is quite expensive and the girls thought that is one thing we could give up. I think Geoff and I were kinda sad about that but oh well, You can't do everything. Especially as we had 2 other big activities planned: Dart River Ride of the Rings and Shotover Canyon Swing. Unfortunately our Milford sound trip is not going to happen. The weather just isn't working out for us. Right now the only way to get there would be to fly.
Our next day was a bit slow. It was cold and rainy/snowy so we had a bit of a late start while we booked our next days activities. We went towards the Gondola again but still snowy up there. We explored the cemetery next door and had a wee climb up the mountain a bit. Saw the mountain bike track and where the zipliners came in. Apparently the walk all the way up was nice but I still think you should be in good shape for it, despite what the Kiwi's say. Us prairie folk aren't used to the hills yet!
We also went to the Kiwi Birdlife park. Was definitely worth the visit. Saw the kiwi feeding and learned a bit about them. Its a darkened room so they are active and one of the ones we saw was digging right next to the glass so we got a good look at her! At the moment they have 3 northern brown kiwi there. They are hoping the young couple they have will breed this year. Kiwi mortality is very high for chicks because they are left on their own when they are very young. That is because much of the birds energy and resources are used in laying the enormous egg(female) and incubating it (male). The chicks produced here will spend their early life in captivity and then be released into the wild when they have a better chance of survival. As one of the guides said, they can live 30 to 40 years so a few captive years doesn't make a huge difference to them.
The rest of the birds there were also very interesting to see and also the tuatara an ancient lizard which dates back to the time of dinosaurs!
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| Sam volunteered to be an assistant in the conservation show. |
In the evening we found a nice Irish pub called Pog Mahones. Good food and great atmosphere. not to mention a great pint!
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