Managed to see Mum, Dad, Vicky, Rohan and Yazmin on Skype to have a chat, sadly Mum Spurway was not online. Had a disturbed night as the girls managed to set the alarm off in their bedroom for just past midnight - yuk ! This unsettled them both so David and I ended up in different beds sharing with different children.
We were up and away by just after 9. After a chat about the route options we decided to follow SH6 as opposed to the Crown Route. The was a combination of factors not least of which being the scary reports of the road type. SH6 is a longer route and had roadworks planned on it aka blasting and shifting rocks at Nevis Bluff.
We drove out of Wanaka and soon found the town of Cromwell which has some very large plastic fruit on the main street. We drove through modern Cromwell to the historic area. This was a lovely find and was developed when the hydroelectric requirements flooded the area including parts of Cromwell to form the lake. A group of locals concerned about the loss of some historic buildings raised funds which allowed them to relocate selected buildings which would have been lost. It was a cold stop so we had a warming cup of coffee in the Fruit and Grains cafe.
After warming up we headed back to the car and onwards. On the way we found a Gold Mining Centre, Kawarau Gorge Mining Centre ($20 each) and spent some time exploring. The replica Chinatown or Canton was really interesting and had been built as a film set some years ago. Despite having paths the ground was pretty rough and I managed to fall and graze my knee and elbow - ouch ! This really made the girls nervous about carrying on as Mummies do not fall over. We walked around the rest of the site and Elizabeth was happy to explore the tunnels , Alex was most definitely not. The main trauma was the presence of a dog. We considered having lunch here but it was not what we were looking for.
We got back into the car which was parked over a bridge which gave fabulous views of the Gorge. The road took us through some lovely scenery and we were able to see and hear Roaring Meg as we drove along. It then took us through a large number of vineyards offering tastings and tours, probably a holiday not involving small children.
As we drove along we saw A.J. Hacketts Bungy jumping place so decided to stop and to quote Alex 'watch the bonkers jumping'. Elizabeth told us Bungy jumping and skydiving is naughty. It is quite the operation and clearly designed for the market, it had a great cafe with loud adrenalin music being played. Outside there were a couple of viewing areas offering different perspectives on the jumping. The girls were transfixed and just wanted to keep watching and watching. We had lunch here and had pies which were $4 each. We stayed a long time here as the girls were fascinated. I offered to look after the girls if David wanted to jump, he strangely refused the offer.
Drove onto Queenstown and checked into the motel which is fine but sadly has no outside seating. We had another tantrum from Elizabeth, no clue why just lost the plot. After a while we went for a walk into the town and spent a fair while on the beach while the girls played before walking further along the front past the boats along the harbour front. Truly lovely, as David says it is a mix of Alpine and seaside, in fact it is a little like Luss but with more sun and more shops.
Popped into Real Journeys office and swapped our Milford Sound booking as reaching Milford for a 1.25pm cruise meant leaving far too early in the morning so we are now on the 10:30am the day after. This also meant I found that the wrong number of lunches had been booked for us but they sorted it out. We then walked through the town and bought fish and chips for dinner.
Back to the motel and the girls had a bath and the washing was run through.