Holiday Part 5

Greetings and Salutations to all

We're in the final stretch of our trip - bummer - and I'm starting to feel a little nostalgic. Here's the latest action:

Day 10 cont.
No parking fine! Hooray! It was (yea verily) raining pretty hard in Queenstown, but we made it back to the motel in one rather soggy piece.

We spent some time enjoying the fresh fudge we'd purchased from the "Traditional" Sweet shop in QTN - it's really easy to go totally silly in these places. The Sucrose-Free fudge was okay, the Manuka Honey fudge was pretty yummy but the winner was the Kiwifruit (and passionfruit) variety - extra insulin was required. We dried out and dolled up for dinner.

We'd booked into a Dinner Cruise on the TSS Earnslaw, a coal-powered steam ship that lives on the Wakatipu Lake in QTN. It's about a gazillion years old, made for this lake, etc etc etc. After being dropped off by the taxi - neither of us wanted to be the nominated driver - we first made a quick stop to one of the multitude of cheap-crap-tourist-souvenir-crap shops and found a very cool Rugby Girl shirt for me. [Expect to see it a lot.] They threw in a free All Blacks poster too. Amazing how all of the AB merchandise seems to be massively reduced at the moment!?!

We had to hang around for the Easrnslaw to arrive, the previous group to disembark, and then pile onboard. It was REALLY cold standing on the docks, but the wind settled down eventually as we climbed on, surrounded by the usual group of U.S. pensioners speaking loudly.

On board, Himself grabbed some drinks while I exercised my charm to get us some seats. I had to death-stare a Japanese family to keep them away. Their poor 8-year-old daughter looked a little intimidated, as did wizened old nanna. We made friends with a couple from Brisbane, Paul and Katherine, who as well as being from the same generation as us were also amused by the whole tourist experience. P & K sat with us, while the now-looking-a-little-freaked-out Japanese family took their table.

The trip over to Walter's Peak farmstead was lovely. The water was smooth, and Himself and Paul did the guy thing, checking out the engine room, boilers, dudes shovelling coal, wheelhouse, etc. [Look out for the cute photo of Himself wearing the captain's hat!] It turns out the captain was originally from Leichhardt, and attended Ultimo TAFE. Small world.

We arrived at the farmstead and piled off the steamer for dinner. Looking back over the water, you could see the lights of QTN, the boat on the water, the crystal-blue skies and the nearly snow-peaked mountains. Postcard beautiful! We managed to talk our way into a table for 4 for our group and we enjoyed the food, wine, company and atmosphere for a while.

[Insert sniggering here] Entertainment was provided by the in-house pianist. Memories of my mother's old Richard Clayderman tapes started to flood back, and I was REALLY glad that I spent 4 years studying music. Showtunes, Andrew Lloyd-Weber and Hits of the 60s all made an appearance. He'd very generously provided sample CDs and tapes on our tables, so we could consider buying the dulcet tones. Yeah, right.

After dinner, we were offered the chance to watch a Real Sheep Shearing Experience!!! [Again, snigger at will] Lots of pensioners taking video footage of a sheep being shorn was pretty amusing. It made me think, though - when tourists come to my country, so they mock the whole Tourist Experience the was I was? I really hope so.

The gift shop was doing a roaring trade in packets of the little clip-on sheep.

When the steamer arrived, we piled back on for the return journey. Himself took me to have a look at the boiler room and the ship's own onboard museum. I was actually pretty interested.

I sent my sister a message saying hi, letting her know what we were up to, and saying we were on a steam ship. Here is her SMS reply:

"Don't talk to me about that fecking steam ship... C still goes on about it 9 years on..."

[C is her husband, they came to NZ on their honeymoon 9 years ago. C is an engineer. Himself had been taking lots of photos of the engine room thinking C would be interested...]

Back in QTN, we stopped in at a few of the bars in the dock area. In the first, the music was so loud our teeth were rattling, but the staff made up for this by giving us drinks at their happy-hour prices, bless them. More menus to add to the illicit cocktail card collection. [Some people collect spoons, I collect cocktail menus, okay? Everyone needs a hobby.] At bar #2, the snippy bar chicky will hopefully have to explain to her boss why one of her menus is missing. The gas fire was really warm, though! We wandered around to a final venue, a pizza restaurant / wanna-be nightclub and had a final stop surrounded by lots of very young-looking backpackers. I felt old! Then up to the taxi stand and Home James with a lovely young Irish chappie driver.

Day 11:

Jet Boating! It was so cool! We had so much fun! Everyone should do it!

We slept in (okay, it was just me,), so we had to do the harry to the Jet Boating site in Shotover Canyon. I was worrying a bit, but saw the Jet Boating bus in my rear-view mirror, so figured we were okay.
Arriving at the canyon, we were geared up with parker jackets and life vests. We were again among our own kind (i.e. people younger that 60 without American accents) in the waiting line when one of the staff asked us to switch queues. Tragedy! Stuck in a line of ancient-but-loud tour groupies!
Fortunately, it meant that none of them wanted to sit in the front seat - so we got the full treatment. Our adventure-lovin' driver gave us a fabulous experience, whizzing around the canyon, splashing water all over the place, making us think we were about to hit the rocks at every turn and generally scaring the bejesus out of us. Himself had his fun-loving grin all over his face and really enjoyed himself, as did I. We took away the obligatory photos of us looking appropriately freaked out and headed to the QTN gondolas.

As with the other gondolas in NZ, we had to run the gauntlet of Japanese tour bus groups and the climbing-onboard-take-your-photo girls. Although my life as a restaurant photographer was quite short (2 weekends filling in for my sister), I generally feel quite sorry for these compulsory-photo people, but we managed to convince this one that we REALLY weren't going to buy it. And ignored her reply of "but it's my job!". Too bad, honey.

Up at the top we had a fab view of the whole QTN area. The usual beautiful scenery, contrasts and serenity with photos. Himself had also signed up for the luge rides, so he went to continue the day's adrenaline theme while I grabbed a coffee. I managed to grab a few shots of Himself on the ride and he seemed to be having a fab time.

We headed back to our motel to arrange for cleaning & washing and chill out for an hour. Then we took a drive out to Arrowtown, which is basically an upper-class version of the rest of QTN - every second shop contained souvenirs and wool clothes.

We're back in QTN CBD at the moment, ready to eat.

A Few Random Thoughts:
* In my rain jacket, the only difference between me and Kenny from South Park is that my jacket is blue instead of orange. All you can see are my eyes.
* A crossword book is a valuable thing to take travelling, as is a good pen.
* Next time, I need to bring more cleanser.
* I love my new boots. Once broken in, they are so comfy. Expect to see them more.

Lots of love to all!