New Zealand - Part 5 of 12'ish

Don't worry, they're not all as insanely long as the last one ;)

Part 5: Queenstown - Day 2
April 21st: My first day with no flights! And also my first day with no set plans. I celebrated this by sleeping in ;) Around 11 I was on the road though, and for the first time experienced the drive into Queenstown by daylight, so I could finally see how GORGEOUS it is! I really should have stopped to take some photos of that as well, but didn't think that far until it was too late.

I found a place to park near the gondola (cable car) that is one of the hallmarks of Queenstown and took the gondola up to Skyline to try out the Luge track. Oh, my goodness - SO MUCH FUN!!!!




The view from the gondola, and to the other side once I'd reached the top.


There were two different luge tracks - Scenic track, which everybody must start off on, in order to get a feel for the luge, and then Advanced which is a lot steeper, has sharper turns, jumps and tunnels. I'll repeat myself and once more say SO MUCH FUN!!!!

I'd originally just bought tickets to try it twice, but though their tag line is "Once isn't enough", it turns out that "Twice isn't enough" either ;) So I decided to go just once more and then head back down. And trust me - it was a battle not to do a fourth and fifth run as well! Say it with me now - SO MUCH FUN!!!


Don't I look like somebody having the time of her life? ;-)

The rest of the day was spent wandering around Queenstown - I had another ice cream at Patagonia (and posted a couple of photos to FB ;) ), went for a walk around Queenstown Gardens (and found Rebekka's roses) and had dinner at a lovely tapas restaurant. For a day I'd been sort of worried about, I ended up having a TERRIFIC time! :)