Up early and delicious eggs benedict in the Eichardt's Bar before driving to Arthur's Point for a Jet Boat ride on the Shotover River. We were kitted out with big waterproof capes and life-jackets before we climbed aboard and Simon and I sat up front with the driver. The next 30 minutes tooks us on a thrilling and exhilerating roller coaster ride at breakneck speed along the river taking us again and again within inches of the rocks along the gorge and including many exciting 360 degree spins. We've done many jet boat rides before but this really was the best and certainly did a good job of waking us up, even if we'd been a bit sleepy before!

Back to the hotel and a very quick turnaround before being collected by our guide, Steff, for our afternoon wine tour in the Central Otago region. There were 7 of us altogether so not too much of a crush and a nice sized group. We headed out towards the Gibbston Valley and our first stop was at Peregrine Wines, a very modern style winery in which everything has an avian theme, even the architecture. We tasted several wines including several varieties of Pinot Noir, not surprising as this is the speciality of the region.

After loading our purchases in the back our next stop was the Carrick winery. After our tasting we sat out on the terrace in the sunshine and were served a fantastic mixed platter lunch which included cold meats, seafood and cheeses as well as stuffed peppers and other goodies. Delicious! Also very good for helping soak up the wine!

Third stop was the Desert Heart Winery where our tasting was conducted by Denny, a lovely lady with a brilliant sense of humour! The wine was good, and when someone is that nice you just have to buy. Last stop was at Chard Farm, and again we tasted some great wines and especially those famous Pinot Noirs which we like so much.

Most of us had a bit of a doze on the minibus on the way back to Queenstown, not surprising after all that wine in the afternoon sunshine. We unloaded all our purchases and then had another quick turnaround ready to be back in Eichardt's cosy bar for our evening glass of Bolly before being picked up and taken to beautiful, historic Gantley's restaurant where we had a booking for dinner. It was very peaceful, in fact we were the only evening diners, but we had a wonderful evening and were very well looked after by our young waiter who was incredibly proud of the restaurant and even gave us a tour of the building. For our meal we chose the degustation menu with matching wines. It all fit together perfectly and the whole experience was fantastic!