Queenstown in the outdoor adventure capital of NZ. There are hundreds of extreme activity options on offer - 6 variations of bungy, jet boating, white-water rafting, river surfing, canyoning, skydiving, mountain biking, paragliding and hang gliding to name but a few.
It is also near a mountain range with the great name of 'The Remarkables', where there is excellent skiing in the winter, and is next to a big lake and surrounded by mountains on all sides.
However, having done a few extreme activities already elsewhere in NZ and looking forward to chilling out in one place for 3 nights, we choose to pursue some gentler pastimes in Queenstown.
On our first evening we walked down to Queenstown gardens which jutt out on a headland and give views across the little bay where the centre of the town is nestled. We watched the sun set over the lake while drinking our bottle shop alcohol on a park bench. Darren did an excellent impression of a truanting teenager.
After such a promising start, we treated ourselves to a night out carrying on the drinking theme. All the bars in Queenstown have happy hours and if you time it right you can be happy for an hour for most of the night. The local gimmick drink is cocktails served in teapots. They're half price at happy hour, so we indulged in a 'milky teapot', knocking back shot after shot of it in 5 minutes. We graced another 3 bars with our presence and arrived triumphantly at the after hours club we'd been told about. But it was empty. Asking where everyone was, we were told that the big night tonight was a 'Pimps and Pornstars' party that we had deemed too tacky to attend (combined with lack of suitable costumes, unless the porn was a hiking-themed film).
The next day we thought we'd nurse our hangovers with a gentle walk to a leisure complex overlooking the town. However, the walk turned out to be an exhausting climb through pine forests up an, at times, impossibly steep hill. On the way we passed quite a few people walking the other way who'd obviously done the sensible thing and got the gondola (cable car) up the hill and walked down. We'd been told that on the return journey they often don't check tickets so you can get a free ride back down, and thought we were rather clever to do it this way. What was touted as a 45 minute walk took at least twice that, but thankfully it was under the shade of the trees as the sun was beating down.
At the top there were great views over the town and lake and across to the Remarkables, embellished by floating splashes of colour made by the paragliders that seemed to appear in endless succession. We ate our picnic waiting for someone to go on the bungy jump or ledge swing but with no luck. Afterwards we treated ourselves to 3 luge rides between us - the luge is the same as the one we went on in Rotorua where you tear down a concrete track on a 3 wheeled cart. Darren won the third ride (with his scissors, paper, stone skill) so Angie filmed him, making him almost come a cropper when he took his hand off the steering to wave.
We managed to hitch a lift on the gondola back down the hill and had a game of mini golf at the bottom to celebrate. It was set in a pretty garden with roses, streams and bridges, but Darren wasn't interested in the surroundings. He was consumed with the fact that Angie was thrashing him.
The following day we set off on a self-drive tour of a nearby wildlife safari park called 'Deerpark Heights'. It was set on a large hill that as well as being home to many animals was also used extensively as a location for Lord of the Rings. But it was the promise of hand feeding the animals that lured us there of course. It started off quite domestic with some pigs, ducks and miniature ponies that competed for the pellets that you could buy at dispensers along the way. It was a hot day so it was great fun watching the 3 pigs getting settled back down into their muddy pool once the food had gone. Then we moved onto the yaks and bison. The yaks were very beautiful with their long fur and twisting horns, but it was the bison that stole the show. Having never seen a bison in the flesh before we were awestruck. The largest, presumably the male, was a huge muscly beast of an animal, whose oversized shoulders stood as tall as Darren. Darren attempted to feed him some pellets, with his hand held out flat as instructed, and as you would do for a horse, but as the bison opened his jaw and moved towards the food, Darren felt his hand completely engulfed inside the huge mouth. Not waiting around to find out how sharp its teeth were, Darren withdrew his hand swiftly, dropping the pellets on the ground and examining the slimy trails of saliva that now hung from his fingers!
Moving on, we were happy to see some goats up ahead and stopped the car to feed something a bit more familiar. However, as the car drew to a stop, goats started appearing from all directions and we were soon surrounded by loads of them. Feeling rather nervous to actually leave the car, I (Darren) distracted them with the food while Angie wound up the car windows and got out. I then passed the food tin to Angie to feed them and she promptly got hijacked by a mob of goats and one in particular jumped up and got his head right into the tin. Hearing her screams, I waded through the goats and rescued the tin (and Angie) before they ate all the food. We decided that they were far too naughty to have any more and set-off for the next furry creatures.
We stopped at the next enclosure which was home to some Thar, a long-haired goat of Himalayan origin and a few nervous young deer. They were all very shy and didn't respond to the shaking of the tin like the other animals. Angie had given up on getting a close up pic but using my best Dr Dolittle skills I managed to coax them over after about 10 mins of patient pleading.
After lunch and a visit to the numerous LOTR film locations, we came across the Highland cows and donkeys. The information sheet stated that the Highland cow was 'very docile and gentle' and when we saw the hairy beasts lazing under a tree we decided to walk the 200m to go and feed them. They looked great with reams of shaggy dark red hair and massive horns. I got real close (as usual) and started to feed them. One of them stood up and munched away happily but took exception to me trying to feed him by hand and waved his massive head from side to side, brandishing his fearsome horns like a couple of twisted swords. He seemed quite docile at first but when our attention switched to some lovely deer that had arrived and who were happy for us to hand feed them, the cows started to advance relentlessly, waving their heads and generally looking like they were about to contradict all previous statments relating to their docileness. As it became apparent that they were keen on skewering at least one of us, I urged Angie to make her way back to the car while throwing food at the beast hoping to buy some time. When I had a good 5m headstart I turned and started walking as briskly as possible, breaking into a run as I got nearer the car. I shouted to Angie 'Leggit!!' just for a laugh, but the joke was nearly on me as I then promptly fell on my ankle nearly busting it and had to limp as fast as possible to the safety of the car. We were gutted that we had not managed to spend more time with the gentle deer but fortunately I had managed to save some food for the next animals which were the donkeys. See the photo to check out what happened there!
So, as you can tell we had a pretty good time at Deerpark Heights. Much better than all this throwing yourself off bridges! However, we still hadn't watched anyone else do so, so on the way out of Queenstown we stopped at Kawarau Bridge where the first commercial bungy jump was done. There is a bungy museum and visitors centre there with a great video showing the 2 guys who started the phenomenon, in 80s outfits, jumping off various famous landmarks. Also film of some unusual jumps like a group of 6 people who bungied sitting inside a white water raft!?! Then we went outside to watch the real thing and have put the video on here.
Feeling the end of our time in New Zealand starting to loom, we set off for the famous Mount Cook National Park.
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