Queenstown pt.2

The view towards the mouth of Dart River

The last couple of days have been absolutely amazing, exhausting and just simply awesome. Apologies in advance for the way this entry jumps around from day to day, we have done so much in the last couple of days and we’ve just been writing it as it comes to mind.

Tuesday saw us recovering from our first encounter with snow and our very first time snowboarding. The bus ride to Cardrona was epic and we wound our way up a mountain down into a valley through the old Cardrona township and then up the mountain itself.

It is sad to think we will be leaving all these awesome sights behind in a couple of days, but after battering ourselves to oblivion by falling over, getting back up and repeating the process dozens of times, it is probably for the best. We had an awesome instructor who was originally from Brisbane, even though her accent suggested otherwise, and she was very helpful in getting us on our feet for the first time. The morning lesson was painful and after a rather shoddy lunch from a very average noodle bar we started getting the hang of it in the afternoon and we both cannot wait to hit the slopes again.

Queenstown is definitely starting to feel more homely and I think we have tried out all the pizza bars and one definitely stands out above the others, they even have decent gluten free bases. There is an awesome wine bar, which features self service tastings through machines imported from Italy, and we both worked our way through almost all the sauvignon blancs and pinots in the building and we even got a print out of what we tasted, so you wine buffs better keep an eye on your email inboxes for some very tasty New Zealand wines.

The bungy jumping on Saturday was insane and the most nerve-racking part of it all was the cable car ride over to the jumping platform, which is suspended over the valley. James’ 134m fall was over in what felt like half a second and definitely worth the hefty price tag, but the video and photo packages were ridiculously expensive so it was lucky Antoinette had her baby with her to capture the horror on the sidelines.

Wednesday saw us tackle the Dart River by jetboat and inflatable canoes and it was just a completely awe inspiring experience. The jetboat was rad and the power these things have is absolutely bonkers, they only need about 12cm of water to shoot through the river and pump out 700L a minute out of each engine. Being thrown around while the jetboat completes a high speed 360 was lots of fun and the canoeing leg of the tour was downstream, so physical exertion was an optional extra. The extra time gave us both time to take plenty of photos and attempt to do the valley justice and even gave us a chance to come up with some ‘oarful’ puns [haaaaaaaa]. The Dart River valley is one of the most incredible and untouched places we have seen and with mountains on display on the left and right side this tour was definitely worth it.

We have become really fond of Queenstown and can’t wait to come back, but with Wellington, Hawaii, Vancouver and so much more waiting for us, Queenstown will just have to wait its turn.

Till next time,

Antoinette and James.

P.S. Antoinette says she has lots of owies.