We visited Queenstown for the first time almost 12 years ago for our wedding in a stone chapel on the shores of Lake Hayes. We fell in love with the place as we flew in that very first time and the pilot gave us the scenic tour as we came in to land. Back in the day (actually around 12 years ago), we still booked travel the old fashioned way - a brochure with nice pictures. If you arrived in the place and reality was half as good as the pictures in the brochure - well that was a win. Queenstown was not only as beautiful as the brochure pictures - but 10 times as beautiful. We've been back several times over the years for skiing, road trips and scenery - but it's been 3 years since our last trip and it seems like the secret is out. There's certainly more development - thankfully everything is still dwarfed by the grandeur of the Remarkables mountain range and the never ending blue depths of Lake Wakatipu. This is the first time we've stayed this long (it will be almost 6 weeks when we leave on 27 June). It's also the first time we have somewhere to call 'home' vs. a hotel room. We are housesitting a gorgeous black German Shepherd called Ripley and living in a 1930s weatherboard cottage in the quiet country township of Kingston (40 minutes south of Queenstown and right at the southern base of Lake Wakatipu). It's about 5 minutes walk down to the lake shore and the scenery changes from day to day on a whim - sometimes the lake is mirror still and mist sits lazily above it as dusk falls. Sometimes the wind howls a gale and there are white caps on the lake and small waves crashing onto the shore. Some days it's colder than others - depending on the fresh snow on the hills immediately around us. We've enjoyed the last three weeks immensely - some more than others. The first week was devoted to a nasty bout of the flu (which could have been a lot worse - we both end up having the flu vaccine twice a year as we flit between hemispheres and chase winters). I've not been sick at all for easily a couple of years - so it hit me hard - James thankfully was an excellent chief cook, bottlewasher, dog walker, fire builder and wood bringer-inner. Our second week, still as weak as kittens, we enjoyed a week long visit from my mum and sister, up from Mosgiel (near Dunedin) even further into the deep south. It was a great chance to utilise one of the best websites we've found in a while - bookme or heavily discounted meals and activity entries. We enjoyed fish and chips on the Queenstown lake shore, meat pies in Arrowtown, roast beef lunches in the sun and several scenic drives. This past week we've truly settled in to our cosy cottage and we enjoy the roaring woodburner every single day - it's simply been too cold to not light it - even if we're just here for a couple of hours before taking Ripley out for walkies or heading out for the day. The weather has been great generally speaking - cold, frosty, sunny and blue skies... We even had a relatively fine day yesterday for a special town outing... but the odd sun-shower showed the weather was desperate to change. But it held off long enough for a second visit to Erik's Fish & Chips (bookme strikes again!) and we soaked up the sun and fended off the ducks while devouring creamy/flaky hoki and chips and people watching (quite an increase in visitors even since just last week). The ski fields opened last weekend (must be a bit thin on the ground we think) and we saw people lugging their hired ski gear around town. Can't say we're keen actually - would be more like ice-skating than skiing at this time in the season. Brrrr. Following our bargain lunch we crossed a 'first' off our bucket list - Visit an Ice Bar. Obviously much more economical than staying in an ice hotel - but up until now have simply not been able to justify, ever, spending $20 each just to go into a bar (made of ice or not). Wow! This was huge fun from the get-go! They hand out big jackets and advise the most important rule of all... always sit your ice-glass cocktail on a mat (not directly on the ice bar) - otherwise it will slide off, crash and you'll lose your luscious cocktail onto the floor. We discovered that Canadian Fireball Whisky is lovely. Though weren't convinced with the idea of cinnamon flavouring until the bar tender poured us a taste into an ice-shot-glass to check it out. We were blessed to be the only two in there for around 40 minutes and between the cocktails, the coloured lights, the rock music and the ice sculptures - were hugely entertained all round. Had we not needed to return to the car park... we could have stayed longer. As I finish writing this we are having breakfast and looking at the fresh snowfall halfway down the mountain in our backyard. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and it's almost time to go out and see some more of this beautiful world.