27th April - 4th May Queenstown and Glenorchy

The journey to Queentown was very scenic through the "fruit orchard" of New Zealand, with mountains on either side and a flat valley in the middle with bright autumnal trees surrounding the river. Even one of the villages was called Fruitlands. After the orchards we came into vineyard territory, which seemed odd as we thought it would be too cold to sustain grapes.

We stayed in a Top "Tin" campsite which was the closest to the town centre which was very expensive - $40 per night, but it was quite unique. Reminded us of Portmeirion in Wales (which became famous from the TV programme The Prisioner). See pic "CreekSyde campsite".

We walked into town which really felt like a ski resort, the sun was shinning, but it was cold, and there was a buzz about the place, although it wasn't ski season yet (starts mid June). We had a snack and looked around the little town. It's totally geared to outdoor pursuits and adrenalin activities - obviously skiing being number one, but out of season they have jetboating, paragliding, white-water rafting, bungy (the home of the bungy jump!), skydiving, riverboarding, and much more.

For a fun and quite cheap day, we took the gondola (Skyline), which takes you up 600 metres above Queenstown, and had a few rides on the Luge (2 x 800m tracks), which was great fun and could have done it all day as the chairlifts carry them up for you (no heaving them up the hill yerself), and all you do is race down the track over great dips to take off on. See pics "Skyline Luge".

That afternoon we made a decision as to what activities to do while we were there. Carl wanted to do white-water rafting, but as there hadn't been any rain at that time it would have been a bit dull (only a grade 2), so instead we booked the Shotover Jetboat and for Carl, riverboarding - which is bodyboarding down the rapids of a river. We planned these both for the next day so we did Jetboating in the morning and Carl did riverboarding in the afternoon.

It started off raining the next morning as we walked down to the booking office for the Jetboating. It was already 10am but we were still waiting and watching the cool video of the Jetboat ride which looked really fab and scary, only to be told at the last minute that it had been cancelled. It was raining far too much for the drivers to see (which apparently is quite important), so we rescheduled for the next morning.

We got absolutely soaked as we made our way back to the van for lunch, before Carl set off for his bodyboarding activity in the afternoon.

Carl hadn't been gone that long before Vik got a text explaining that the bodyrafting had been cancelled. There had been the most unfortunate accident that Carl had witnessed unknowingly. Everything was fine, as they were all suited and booted and got on the bus to the start point of the river. As they got off they saw a bodyboard float past them down the river by itself, at first everyone was laughing at the rival company allowing their equipment to escape. There seemed to be an issue with the other group and there was a commotion around a rock just up the river when Carl's group had made their way down to the water, so the guides went to find out what was happening.

They were waiting around 20 minutes for the guide to come back, and in that time all the emergency services had arrived. The guide came back and told them that the riverboarding had been cancelled, so they made their way back to the bus. It was at this point, on seeing the bus driver's white distraught face, that they realised something bad had happened.

Unfortunately a girl from the UK had got caught in the rocks and drowned, she was only 21. It was such a sad incident that it affected the whole of Queenstown for a couple of days. It was a the first fatal accident in 20 years of riverboarding on that river.

The next morning we made our way back down to the Jetboating booking office, only to be told that it had been cancelled again as it was raining. Therefore, we booked it for a couple of days ahead (knowing the weather would improve by then), and then went off to place indoor crazy golf. Such a great idea, why don't we have any indoor activities? It was really fun as it had all mechanical machinery that moved the balls around (for instance - up the Queenstown gondola). We got two lollies at the end, and free tea or coffee - small pleasures!

We filled our afternoon by doing the blog, and going to the supermarket, and maybe we left it a little late to get to Glenorchy as we had to leg it there before the campsite office closed. Glenorchy is situated north of Queenstown at the top of the same lake, Wakatipu. The journey there is beautifully scenic but with extremely twisting roads.

Luckily we arrived before 7pm so we got a site. It was really pitch black that evening and the Milky Way was bright, it was going to be a very cold night! We ate our chicken, mash and veg in the camp kitchen and went to bed early so we could have an early start for climbing Mount Alfred/Ari.

We woke up late the next morning! It had been raining and snowing through the night and the cold had kept us awake, so we felt the need for the extra sleep - so much for an early start!

We got to the start of the trek at 12pm. The walking leaflet had suggested a 5 - 6 hour round trip, so we panicked a bit (packing our torches), and marched up the hill. The track zig-zagged up in the forest for about 2 and a half hours before we finally escaped the tree line to see the top of the mountain and the view around us. It was quite steep near the top as we had to clamber up scree and on ice.

When we reached the top, you got a fantastic panoramic of Lake Wakatipu and the surrounding mountains. It was another 20mins walk along a ridge before we reached the official summit further north. We had lunch - sarnies, then made our way back down, as we could see the rain clouds heading straight for us.

It only took around an hour to get back down, so by the time we'd made it back, the whole trek had only took us 4 and a half hours, we was great because it had just started raining as we got in the van.

The next morning we had to head back to Queenstown to do out Jetboating at 12pm. We checked into a new campsite, a cheaper one and headed for the booking office again. It was snowing this time, so it no surprise that it was cancelled a third time. We hoped that maybe it would clear up by the afternoon, and made one last attempt at booking it for the afternoon.

In the meantime, we went to the local internet cafe to do some more blogging, and came across Sebastian, who was one of our Open Water diving companions in Koh Tao from early January. Another freaky "small world" moment!

We filled our time by having lunch back at the campsite, but by this time is was sleeting hard, and thought that we'd never get to go on the Jetboat.

We checked in to the office again (serious deja vu) and waited for it to be cancelled, but to our amazement the bus arrived to take us to Shotover River.

The Jetboat ride was really fast and thrilling, and bloody freezing. It takes you through a narrow gorge only just avoiding the cliff edges and rocks, and doing the trademark 360 spins - was fab and worth the wait.

We'd planned to do another trek, and had bought a trek guide for Ben Lomond (1818m), a traditional looking mountain overlooking Queenstown. See pics.

It was an easy start, as we decided to take the gondola up the first 600 metres at $21 return - why wouldn't you? There was a light covering of snow, but it got deeper after the Saddle, where we got our axes our for support up the steep climb to the summit. We could see the other side of the valley from here for the first time with views towards Mount Earnshaw and Mount Aspiring. It was hard to take in as the view was extreme - like being in an aeroplane.

It was surprisingly a quick climb through a foot deep of snow to the summit, but a slippery one. When we got to the top, we had to get covered up straight away as it was absolutely freezing. All our wet bits of clothing started to freeze and became solid. We didn't spend too long at the top, but long enough to see a helicopter bank over with everyone inside waving at us.

On the way down, Vik put her hired crampons on, so she didn't slip on her arse the whole way down - they worked very well. Half way down we bumped into a couple who were attempting (obviously at the last minute) to walk to the summit, with only a small flask of coffee. They were just wearing jeans and plimsolls (which were completely wet through already), and no warm clothes or waterproofs - crazy kids! We hoped they made it back down, but we'll never know.

We had our sarnies at the gondola, where there was a cafe (so had hot chocolate), and made our way back to the campervan. That evening we treated ourselves with Guinness and potato wedges at the local Irish pub.

On our last day Carl thought he would like to do white-water rafting on the Shotover River as there had been a lot of rain. Unfortunately, when he went to book it he was told that it wasn't going ahead that day due to snow and ice on the road to the starting point. So instead as it was a nice sunny day we decided to drive up to The Remarkables Ski area. The road was surprising long (13km) and rough with no barriers, so it was a little hairy going along the edge of the mountain. We drove for ages before reaching the snow line and stopped to take in the view over Queenstown and Ben Lomond in the background. We didn't attempt to go any further as the road was really icy so headed back down thinking, why don't they have ski lifts?

That night the temperature dropped down to -5 degrees, was a bit uncomfortable to sleep, so got up as late as possible before heading off to Wanaka.