Queenstown 24th & 25th January

Tucked under The Remarkables mountain range on the edge of LakeWakatipu, Queenstown is a year round resort with skiers in winter and back packers and thrill seekers in summer.The population of Queenstown can vary from just 7,000 to 23,000 depending on the season.The town claims to be the "adventure capital" with about 150 activities on offer such as bungy jumping, Shotover Jet boats and white water rafting.Ant and I decided on some more leisurely, sedate pursuits for the next 2 days.This is my favourite town of the trip so far and it reminds me in some ways of the Lake District with its towering hills and steam boat offering pleasure cruises across the lake.

Ant and I rose quite late on Monday morning and had a leisurely breakfast before strolling down into town to Patagonia, a café that we had been told had free Internet if you bought a coffee.Unfortunately, it kept dropping out so we gave up and took the laptop back to our hostel.

This afternoon Ant and I went on a Paradise Safari 4 wheel drive tour.This is a half day 4WD scenic safari to several film locations including Lord of the Rings, Narnia and X-Men Origins:Wolverine.There was just 4 of us in the car and the driver was a very knowledgeable local who very kindly took loads of photos of us along the way.He had even bought some movie props with him so we could dress up like Hobbits!!!At each location he showed us shots from the movies.We followed the edge of LakeWakatipu to a place called Glenorchy (pop 500) which is ranked as one of the most scenic drives in the world.40 minutes beyond Glenorchy is Paradise which is where some of the Lord of the Rings scenes were filmed.

Our driver dropped us at the supermarket at the back of our hostel where we purchased fresh salmon, corn, sweet potatoes and salad for dinner tonight which was eaten on our patio with stunning views of the mountains behind us.

We got up even later on Tuesday morning and had a very nice breakfast of scrambled egg and beans on toast (it's great having a kitchen!!).This was followed by a stroll down to town where we had discovered a Starbucks!!!Later we took the Skyline Gondola to the top of Ben Lomond (you can mountain bike down if you are so inclined).From here we had amazing views back over Queenstown - Ant had also decided to add a luge ride to his ticket.A luge is usually a 1 or 2 person alpine sled but these were more like go-karts on a concrete track.

This afternoon we had planned on taking the steam boat out on the lake but as we descended back down into town we noticed it had become very windy and the lake was incredibly rough.We decided to give the boat ride a miss and instead took a very pleasant (but windy) walk around QueenstownGardens - very English!!! You can also play something called Frisbee golf here which involves aiming a Frisbee at a basket several metres away (and sometimes out of sight too!!)