Wanaka/Queenstown/Arrowtown

February 10-12, 2009

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From Franz Josef, we continued down the west coast. We were scheduled for a helicopter tour over Fox Glacier, but there were low clouds that morning and the tours were cancelled. So we continued our drive over Haast Pass down to Wanaka, where we spent the night. The following day we made the short drive to Queenstown, the “adventure capital” of New Zealand (perhaps the world), the home of bungy jumping and jet boat rides. We didn’t participate in any of the adrenaline activities though. In Queenstown, we took the TSS Earnslaw vintage steam ship across Lake Wakatipu to the Walter Peak Farm, where we had a tour with demonstrations of a dog herding sheep and sheep shearing. Sheep outnumber people by a large margin in New Zealand. After returning to Queenstown, we took the gondola, which went almost straight up the side of a mountain for great views of the city and surrounding area! After the gondola, we visited the close by Kiwi and Birdlife Park, where we got our first view of a live kiwi. Since the birds are nocturnal, they were tricked in the “kiwi house” by it being dark during the day and light at night. But due to the darkness we don’t have any kiwi pictures.

We just spent the day in Queenstown, preferring someplace quieter to spend the night. So we took the short drive to nearby Arrowtown to spend the night, a historic town known for its gold. The next morning we tried our hand at gold panning on the Arrow River. Patty really got into it, but after visiting the local gold shop with her prospects, she came up “empty.”