With 3 days in Queenstown, we had planned for doing the sky dive and paragliding on day 1 as its highly weather-dependent and we wanted a buffer of an extra day or two in case nature turned against us. Which was well and good, as we got the disheartening cancellation messages 30 mins before our planned skydive in the morning, with both skydive and paragliding cancelled due to bad weather. We tried rescheduling the skydive a couple of hours later but the weather didnt clear up. We were groggy to say the least as we didn't want to get up from the bed in the cool weather in the first place! Anyway we spent the next couple of hours catching up on some much needed sleep and calling up tour operators to reschedule our itineraries. We ended up essentially swapping today's original programme with the one a couple of days later, planning instead to do the river adventures today.
NZ is full of rivers and lakes so there are no shortage of activities surrounding them, including nature walks, biking trails, hiking, crusing etc. We decided for the jet boat ride in the morning in the Shotover river and the zipline over Kawarau River in the afternoon.
Shotover Jet base was a short 30 min ride from Queenstown, back up the way we entered the city. We could see the most covered mountains on the way up. The Jet boat ride was fast and furious, with the 360 degree turns making a big splash, figuritively and literally! The downstream ride was more spectacular than the upstream part, but the proximity of the rocks and bumping over a few on the way made the ride spectacular. Even my daughter, who was skeptical at first, enjoyed the adventure, although my son complained of some ear pain later on due to the pressure changes. All of us thoroughly enjoyed the adrenaline rush though!
After a quick stop over at the hotel to have a cuppa, we were on the road again for another 45 min drive to Kawarau bridge. Thankfully, we managed to get the last slot for the day for the zipride, which the family enjoyed. It was longer than the Redwoods ' one, but having had that experience, the novelty had worn off, although left dangling for a good minute or two over the river way down below was fun.
The kids had had enough for the day and wanted to just chill in the hotel, so my wife and myself decided to have a nice stroll along the beach. It was a nice warm evening, and we discovered people enjoying themselves with their families at the playground, relaxing by the beach, doing activities like pedal boating in the lake or just sitting on the grass bank and admiring the nature around them. We found people of all walks of life, of all ages, just relaxing on a Friday evening.
I ordered a cotton candy to eat along the way but was stunned to get the biggest cotton candy I have ever had in my life, around 1m tall! We went around to find a slightly hidden botanical garden, laced with sculptures, fountains, water lillies and the biggest roses we have seen, in a myriad of colours and a range of scents to blow the mind away. We ended up spending more than 3 hours in the evening walk, covering the garden, beach front and shops in the central area. Things certainly were more expensive here in NZ, but with cosy weather, quintessential beauty all around, fun and relaxing activities to do alone or with family, we were wondering what in the world people from Queenstown wanted to achieve by travelling out of the city!
The kids were craving for a South Indian dinner, so we went to the only one out of 4 Indian restaurants that had idlis and dosas. At NZD 20 for a plain dosa, I almost had a heart attack, but not as if we had much choice. But the quality was the worst of our trip so far, reinforcing my belief that we should never order south Indian fare from a north Indian restaurant and leaving me with a bitter taste at the end of what was another lovely day otherwise.
Today was a day to get some adrenaline out and relax. We hit the bed early around 10pm as we have the longest drive tomorrow to Milford Sound, the famed natural wonderland nestled in the heart of the Fjordland. I am definitely looking forward to the drive through Milford Road despite there being some roadworks on the narrow road.
No comments:
Post a Comment