Clarion Suites Alpine Wanaka

Hey you wanna trade Me You and Dupree for Squid in the Whale? The morning set off after a dvd trade with fellow space shippers then off for the daily coffee. I can't emphasize enough how coffee jacked this place is. A little internet Skype with Laura’s parents, some emailing, a bacon-egg sammy, and we are back on the road. Unfortunately, it is a backtracking road which leads into Queenstown. It is bitter sweet to not have Milford ...

... 2 and 1/2 hours later... (even though it's meant to be a 1hour trip) had a lovely time going on walks and doing nothing... went to the cinema on the friday night before heading out- the photos say it all! not only do they have a bar... with yummy wine.... bake cookies in the interval but you get to sit on couches and even a car!!!!! i never want to go to an odeon again! The mountains were closed ...

... spirits we headed out to a couple of bars and had a good time. That was until I received a text from Mark informing that Ronaldo had been sold!


Queenstown

The next morning we headed off, with me driving, along the windy mountain roads to the adventure capital of New Zealand, Queenstown. In Queenstown you can do every adventure sport going, skiing, snowboaring, bungee jumping, sky diving, white water rapids, canyon swings, the list goes on and on! Walking down the ...

... flying around in the air. I felt like a bird exploring the scenery. When it was time to land I thought it was going to hurt, but we smoothly glided down and slide on our bums for about two metres before coming to a stop. It was an awsome experience and definately one of the coolest things i've ever done. After the sky dive, me and Tristen had to drive two cars down to the drop zone, before boarding our bus and heading to Wanaka. After arriving in Wanaka, we checked into a ...

... chocolate. We have more than our fair share of tasters and buy some fruit and some Manuka honey. Then back once again in Queenstown (YHA, Lakeside) for a final night before heading off to Dunedin in the morning. We eat our last delicious Fergberger. We wander through the town and walk along the lake savouring the best-ever dark chocolate and raspberry sorbet ice-cream from "Patagonia".

... going quite well for a while, until we realised the little buggers were climbing under the walls and going thru the emergency exits! So that failed, we were on our own!! We did quite well, finding all four corners first then making our way out in a total of 45mins! (The average is 1-1 1/2!) So we were quite chuffed with that, we rewarded ourselves with more puxxle playing.........we still didnt get home till dinner time!!

We considered driving all the way back to the albatross colony, but the morning was only slightly breezy and since it was out of our way, we decided that we were not going to befriend the albatross of NZ on this trip, and headed back inland to Wanaka, via the fruit-growing and wine regions. The driving got more and more striking as we got further inland. We had long since run out of apricots and cherries ...

Amazing, life affirming, better than sex, glorious, sickening, wonderful skydive. Thanks for the 30th Birthday present Mum and Jas. I've got a brilliant DVD of it. Won't forget this one! For all those worried, the "better-than-sex" comment was just an expression of how great it was.

... the same time. My mini adventure seemed tame in comparison. When he asked what I did, we got chatting about how his bike had fared during his trip and his biggest mechanical had been the weld splitting on one of his pannier racks! Not a single puncture, buckle, cable change, snapping chain etc and amazingly he'd counted only 7 days of rain on his travels since August. He'd have to make that 8 come tomorrow. Much as I was enjoying our chat, I wanted to get down to the ...

... took the lazy drive back into town.

On the way back we were driving next to running sheep for a while, and then came across this guy, who obviously owned the road!

What are moo looking at?

Wanaka, New Zealand al_fey