Today, after more time playing In Jan and Laura's awesome garden we packed up again and headed towards our next stop, Te Anau, via Queenstown. The road trip was interesting, the Crown Range is rugged and windy and not great for reading, so we had another audio book: The Waterhorse...it was brilliant.

When we got over the range we could see Queenstown in the valley below. We had plenty of time, so we trundled along to Arrowtown first. Arrowtown is a bustling gold miners village with lots of history. We explored the Chinese settlement, and decided people must have been very short back in those days because the doorways were tiny! The story there is the oldest store remaining in the South Island.

Then we walked along the street and looked at the shops, all set out like a traditional village, and it reminded us of England. We played on some big rocks that just begged for climbing, and stopped to see some horses which were parked up after people had ridden in to town to get lunch! Then mum surprised us by delivering us to an old fashioned lolly shop that she knew was there...yum! We bought some treats for the next leg of the journey.

We walked back beside the river, which is really pretty. Then we carried on to Queenstown ( in the car, not walking!). It was REALLY busy in Queenstown. The city is humming with tourists. It was a beautiful day so we bought lunch and took it down to the lakefront to watch all the activity on lake Wakitipu. We saw the steamboat, the Earnslaw, and jet boats, para sailing, kayaking and these amazing things that looked like Orcas, but went like a jet ski...the Hydro Attack. They even leapt high out of the water. We all decided that would be awesome! Gemma also wanted to do the zip line but we didn't have time today. So instead we skimmed stones, and ate some of the cake Laura had given us, then moved on to Te Anau, promising to come back to Queenstown sometime.

It was a nice drive to Te Anau, everything is unspoilt looking. We were staying at a motor camp, so when we arrived we went exploring to find the playground. Our cabin was huge and looked over the lake, so we all decided we liked it here and we're glad we were spending 2 nights.

We walked into the town for dinner. Beside the lake we saw birds and boats and even a sea/lake plane. We found a massive playground so we played there until we were exhausted, then found a restaurant for dinner. It took ages, but it was yum. After that we walked back to to our motor camp, only to find it had poured with rain while we were at dinner, and the pathway was flooded! And it was very dark because a there are very few streetlights.

We collapsed into our beds again in this peaceful place, ready to head to Milford Sound the next day.