Sunday Day 5,
We slept til 9! Woo Hoo! We are in the town of Wanaka at a B&B, but Guy went down to get breakfast since I was still getting ready and breakfast was about to end. While I ate he put some clothes in the washer and we dried them when we walked around the lake to the town. There were some girls getting wind surfing lessons. Now, I know that water was c-o-l-d! Lucky for me, it was a once a month market day and there were some locals selling their hand made items. I looked at all the goodies and decided to buy a necklace. I was trying to choose when the man started telling me about the 4 layer process and how there was pieces of silver in them. He pointed to his favorite and said he designed it after a picture from the hubble telescope. The silver specks were stars. Ok...now how could I NOT get that one? :) Guy took our picture. We walked back to the lodge and got our laundry, some biscuits "cookies" for the road and headed for Arrowntown. It took about an hour but the scenery was to die for. We stopped several times to get out just to look. Again today it is drizzely and overcast so not the best for long distance shots. In Arrowtown we ate lunch and went to the bakery for dessert. The bakery cafe was closing early because there was a concert at 3pm in the town. The sign on the door said "Because the staff needs a break and are going to the concert we are now CLOSED!" ha ha. Arrowtown was an old gold mining town and looks like an old town you'd see in Colorado. We hit all the shops and that didn't take long. So we hopped back in the car and headed for Queenstown. We drove around the town, checked in and unloaded our stuff as we are here 2 nights.
We walked around town and made plans for day 6. A 6 hour Dart River Safari! It is jet boating on the Dart river, a walk thru a forrest and then a jeep ride on back roads. There were several Lord of the Rings locations on it as well. It is looking like some serious rain here so we got a pizza at "Winney's" (best pizza in town we were told) and went to the movie. We saw Slumdog Millionaire. Good movie. After the movie it had cleared off so we stopped for some hot chocolate (same place I'm at now) and then turned in for the night. Tomorrow will be a big day.
Day 6
We got up to wonderful SUNSHINE!!! We were prepared to safari in the rain, but as luck would have it, it is clearing off beautifully. It is a bit breezy but a jacket was all that was necessary even tho we had gloves and scarves. Our trip didn't leave until 11:40 so we walked around a bit and got some bread and cheese at the local bakery to pack for our lunch. We caught the bus and started on our adventure. Let me say the bus ride was an adventure in itself. A ride thru the mountains of course on the curvy road and drop offs with no guard rails. Of course going there we were right on the edge and our driver was so busy talking, looking, pointing, drinking coffee and talking on his walkie talkie that I knew we might die that very day. I said a prayer and moved to the middle of the bus. Guy always gives me the widow seat but I had to move away from the terror. :) Almost as bad as the Positano bus ride. The guy was just going too fast for me. Anyway, since I am typing this after the fact, we made it alive. After getting to the little town mountain of 200 people (I forget the name) they said this town is very friendly but they are a bit snobby because all 200 of them were extras in the Lord of the Rings movies and they feel a bit like movie stars. - We loaded in our boat and took off for a great ride in the river. Of course they do 360s and try to get us wet, but that was part of the fun. I tried to video, but it didn't do it justice. The boat ride was an hour and a half. It was great fun and the scenery was something that words don't describe. At one point the river was flowing pretty good and there were BIG rocks all over that we were dodging. I wasn't too scared, but a wrong turn and we would have all been swimming or worse. The driver said when he was first learning the river and how to navigate the rocks he was really scared. Now he just has fun with it and lets all of us be scared.
After the boat ride was over we got off just on the side of the river and gave our lifejackets to the next group and we headed for the "forest". It was very giant city like and a lot of the mossy stuff in the brochure wasn't there, but that was ok. We then loaded the jeep and took off for a leisure ride over streams and woods. He explained the history of the area which was interesting and talked about the possums. Apparently the possums were brought over by the Aussies back in the 1800s for fur trade. They brought over 50 of them and now they estimate over 70 million live here. They did use them as fur trade for years, but a fur saving plight by Sophia Loren ended the fur trading business and now the critters are out of control. They still trap them and make garmets here mixed with the wool they make. It is expensive tho, surprisingly, and I was hoping to buy possum socks for everyone, but looks like that won't be possible. Too much $$$. :) Oh well. They did bring in another animal to help control the rabbit problem but when they got here these animals were smart and lazy and instead of picking on the rabbits, they just laid around until flightless bird walked by and ate them instead. So now they have another problem, these critters have caused the extinction of nearly 100 varieties of flightless birds. Sad really. The reason there were so many flightless birds is because New Zealand had no mammals and over the years, the birds evolved into flightless birds because they had no predators. Interesting. So all the possum, sheep, deer, etc were all introduced here.
As we made the trip back to Queenstown, we were on a much smaller bus and was not on the edge, so it was a nice trip back. We got back about 5:30pm and it was so beautiful weather wise we decided to take the gondola to the top. It also included a Luge ride down part of the mountain. Sounded like fun. The scenery from the top was spectacular and I took lots of pictures and video. We then ventured to the Luge. No helmet no ride. I told Guy I was not putting on one of those cootie infested helmets because people were just taking them off and putting the in big bins for the next person. So Guy gave me his sock hat and I then felt a little better about it. :) The ride was fun and didn't last nearly long enough. At the end they had a big sign that said "Smile for the camera" so I made a face like I was terrorized by the ride and it was funny. :) I'll try to load it when I have more time.
We got back to the hotel and started out for dinner. We were both starved because our only lunch was bread on the jeep. So we went to a restaurant called Botswana Butchery. It was recommended by the hotel. When we arrived they said it was either a 1 hour wait or we could eat at the bar. Starved, we ate at the bar. The service was outstanding and the food was even better. The decor was cool with very trendy painting and butcher knives were the decoration. Guy said the handle to the bathroom door was a big butcher handle that had been stabbed in the door. My dessert had a little cookie butcher knife stabbing my chocolate custard tart. :) Our dinner however was excellent. I had a greek salad and venison steak. Guy had a caesar salad and the Venison steak as well. Really good. We each chose a sauce to put over the steak and we ate every bite.
What a beautiful day. If it were any better I'd be in heaven, seriously.
Ok this is funny. We are at the chocolate bar and the guy behind the counter just approached Guy and asked him if he just took just took the money out of the tip jar!!! We are dying laughing. The girl behind the counter was point toward us but was actually pointing outside. He came back and apologized but we suddenly felt like we were in a Seinfeld episode. :)
Ok... off to the deer farm and the town of Manapouri! Sorry for any typos...in a bit of a hurry.