In what has become the usual comment, the day dawned with hardly a cloud in the sky once again and with packed up the bags and headed to the dining room for our full cooked breakfast. The breakfast was included in the cost of the room and it should be for the $175. We left the motel at 8 am and stopped to fill up the car with petrol. $1.43 a liter adds up very quickly with the average fill-up coming it at around $70. We headed up the Haast valley with its canyon walls so steep that we drove along in dark shadows for about 30 minutes until the sun was high enough in the sky to reach the valley floor. The road was twisty as is normal and we paralleled the Haast River until we reached the Gates of Haast that is a narrow gorge where the water rolls over rapids and literally boiled through the opening. We climbed steadily until we passed through the Haast pass at 1600 meters and then the road flattened out and we continued driving through mountains and valleys for about 2 hours passing by beautiful lakes until arriving in Queenstown around 11:30 am. What a shock! People everyone speaking most dialects and crowded narrow streets on the national holiday of Waitangi Day. We soon discovered that there were no celebrations planned and many restaurants are closed to give staff a holiday or place a surcharge on service that day. We found the I-site and booked two seats on the Shotover River Jet Boats for tomorrow at 11 am. This is one of the activities that was on my to do list. As it was now noon we walked down toward the lakefront through the Queenstown mall that is an open-air pedestrian way with dozens of shops, restaurants and bars that never seems to slow down. The weather was beautiful and the temperature hovered around 29 degrees. We found a small sandwich and coffee shop and sat outside in the shade to enjoy the world passing by. After lunch we found our hotel named Hurley’s of Queenstown and booked in and carried our bags in. Back into the car and we headed to the gondolas that rise up 450 meters from down town to an observation platform and restaurant that over looks Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu. The lake stretches for 84 kms and actual has an America’s Cup boat for hire on it. Queenstown’s main ambition is to provide endless thrills and separate you from your money! The view from the top is breathtaking both in the scenery as well as watching people throw themselves off a bungy platform for $150 or go paragliding to the base while flying out over the lake for $185. Oh yeah the gondola ride was $40. We marveled at the view for awhile and headed out the anther bungy jump on the Kawarua River where for another $150 you can fall about 103 meters to half submerge yourself in the river. It was great fun to watch but I was to big a chicken to do it. We continued up the river for a few kms and stopped in at a winery named Peregrine to sample some of the Sauvignon Blanc and the famous Pinot Noirs of the Central Otago district. We closed the winery at 5 pm and headed back to town to find a great local pizza place named Winnies. Great zaa and cold beer can’t go wrong in my book. We headed back to the motel and sat on the little deck to sip the two flat white takeaways we brought back with us. One day to go before we start out on the Milford Track and we are counting the hours.
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