January 18 - January 21
Wednesday, January 18
Today is mostly a travel day with a five hour drive from Franz Josef to Queenstown. The drive is pretty uneventful with rain for the first half of it. Along the way, we stop to look at one of the West Coast beaches with really rough surf. We're a bit surprised at how much and how quickly the landscape changes. At one point you're driving through rain forest. 20 minutes later you're driving though mountains that have almost no vegetation.
As we start to get closer to Queenstown, we pass a number of incredibly blue lakes. These are all quite large and seem to have almost no one on them. We're quite confused. Before we left, we knew that the South Island had a lot fewer people, but we didn't realize that there was really this few people. If this lake was in Texas, it would be packed with people.
We get to Queenstown and find our apartment. It's quite nice and has a fantastic view. We're also thrilled that we have internet access here in the apartment. Yea! We also have a washer/dryer combo (we have a lot of laundry to do), but unfortunately it's one of those funky European models that takes forever to do a load of clothes.
We're also quite excited to learn that there is a Mexican restaurant here as we've now gone more than 3 weeks without Tex-Mex. We have dinner there and while it's not quite the same as favorites back home, it's pretty good.
Thursday, January 19
After a good night's sleep, it's time for some serious activity. We're going white water rafting down the Shotover River. Queenstown is a major spot for adventure activities. You can do just about anything here: bungy jumping, parasailing, skydiving, 4-wheeling, biking, white water rafting, and the list goes on. Our tour book says that more tourists suffer from broken bones here than in any other part of New Zealand, and there's no wonder why.
We book a half-day raft trip on the upper Shotover river. We get suited up and get on the bus for the 30 or so minute ride to the river. We take Skipper's Road (gravel) to the river, and they forgot to warn us about it before we got on the bus. It's one of two roads in New Zealand where rental cars are not permitted, and there is a very good reason. It's an old miner's road that's twisty and very narrow. There were several folks on the bus who were just having fits as we went around turns. At one point we approached a camper van going the opposite direction who wanted to pass. He tried, but from reports of others on the bus, his tires were right on the edge of the cliff. Our river guides talked some sense into him and he backed down to a wider spot in the road where we could pass. It was quite the show.
We finally get to the river. There is a large group of us, 10 rafts with 6-7 people per raft plus a guide. We have a total of 9 rapids to go down that range from Class 3 to Class 4. Our guide, Ian, is from Scotland and provides us very good instructions on our way to the first rapid. We have wetsuits on, but the water is about 50 degrees, so we're not exactly interested in willingly leaving the raft.
The first 6 rapids are spaced very close. We survive that set, although another raft capsizes and another raft loses a couple of folks. It takes the entire entourage a long time to get everyone situated back into rafts with the proper equipment.
We go through another rapid and then have to float through a tunnel which leads us to the last two. We survive it all and are very happy!!
We have some dinner back in town and then head back to the apartment for some much needed rest.
Friday, January 20
Today is jet boating around the lake and up the lower part of Shotover River (as if we didn't get enough of that action yesterday!). There are two major jet boat operating companies here in Queenstown. The one we wanted has been having engine corrosion issues with their fuel, so they've temporarily stopped running. The one that we took uses slightly less powerful boats, a mere 700 hp. The boat guides do donut turns in the lake and in the river. They can also do these very quick turns to avoid water obstacles (like rocks and trees and such) that are quite exhilarating. It's amazing how much control they have on the river. If you were paying attention above, you know that the water temperature is about 50 degrees. The only minor issue with these boat rides is that while doing water donuts, the passengers have a tendency to get wet. We get seated on the back row and Travis gets the port side end seat. He gets half totally soaked during the hour-long ride and he's freezing and not exactly thrilled about the entire event.
Despite the wet and the cold, it was a really good ride. We spend as much time in the sun as possible to warm up (and for Travis to dry out), have some lunch, do a couple of things around town and then go back to the apartment for an easy afternoon.
We soon get bored and head to Arrowtown. It's a 100+ year old mining town that's about 30 minutes away which has been revitalized (mainly tourist shopping and restaurants). It also has about 50 buildings that have been restored to what they'd have looked like in the late 1800s. They have a pretty good museum there where we learn a lot about the local history. They also have the remnants of the Chinese Village where a lot of the Chinese immigrants lived while they were in the area working as gold miners.
We headed back to town for dinner and call it a day.
That pretty much concludes our Queenstown activities. Saturday we will be leaving Queenstown and heading to the west coat again. Check back in a few days for our next update.
The drive to Queenstown along the west coast had a lot of surf.
Once we got away from the coast, we drove by some very nice lakes. This one is Lake Wanaka (the water really is that blue and there was just a couple of boats on it - some of these areas are hardly populated).
The view from our rented apartment in Queenstown. That's Lake Wakatipu that we're facing (another very pretty lake).
We've reached civilization! We found a Mexican food restaurant.
A view of part of the Shotover River (the one we're going to raft down) from the very windy road above.
Travis and Doug on the Shotover River (making yet another fashion statement).
Take a look at the rapids in the background that we just went over (one of nine).
We also had to go through this tunnel.
Doug, our guide Ian (from Scotland) and Travis all survive the white water experience.
We took a cruise on this jet boat around the lake and up a lower section of the Shotover River. The guide did donut spins.
Our jet boat going through very shallow water.
Travis gets soaked on the jet boat cruise (and despite the smile, he's not happy about it).
Doug with OLD washing machine at the Arrowtown museum. He's wondering if it will work as well as the one in our rented Queenstown apartment.
Travis checks out one of the huts at the Arrowtown Chinese Village.