Friday, April 21, 2006
News from Queenstown
Last Sunday Maggie and I went to the airshow "Warbirds over Wanaka" which was pretty cool. There was lots of aerial acrobatics and demonstrations, the best of which had to be the fuel dump by the F-111 plane - I got some great photos which I will post fairly soon as I've not got too much room left on my memory card. We went into Wanaka town in the evening and seemed to hop around every bar that was open! We started off in an Irish bar for dinner, then moved on to an ale house with views over the lake, then on to another Irish bar, and then back to the first Irish bar. There weren't too many places open on Easter Sunday - which Maggie and Ray thought was wierd as no-one had to go to work the next day so they figured people would be taking advantage. But no, the town was pretty dead. We did meet some cool people who were up from Dunedin for the weekend for the airshow and will definitely catch up with them when I head down that way.
On Monday we (Maggie and I) walked up to the Puzzling World. This is one of those places where pretty much all you say is "how did they do that?", but it did answer some of the questions I'd had in Lord of the Rings in respect of how they had a guy who was over 6 foot playing a dwarf smaller than a hobbit without too much digital trickery. There were also these wierd portraits where it was like someone had pressed their face into a sheet of plastic and let it mould to their features - so they were indented into the wall - but yet they looked like they were leaping out at you and they followed you all around the room. There was also a room where everything was at an angle and they had those wierd black and white line thingys on the wall so as soon as I walked in those line thingys started moving and I felt sick - so Maggie had to go through on her own. It completely freaked me out.
In the afternoon we caught the Magic bus on to Queenstown. So far it seems like there's lots to do here if you have the money to spend ...
So far we've been jetboating up the Kawarau river which was great fun - thank god Maggie persuaded me to wear a waterproof as I ended up sitting at the side of the jetboat and got pretty soaked on some of the 360 degree turns! We then went up the gondola to the luge - which is the same thing I did in Rotorua. We went down 5 times without coming off once - and one point the track looks pretty much vertical when you get to the top of the peak and is followed quickly by a 180 degree bend - so we were lucky to stay on the track cos we decided we liked going down that bit pretty fast... We also hit the casino to play blackjack and came off slightly better than we went in.
On Wednesday, Maggie and Ray headed out to Milford Sound. This part is already covered by my Magic bus pass and they were hiring a car to do it, so I've stayed on in Queenstown. I spent Wednesday and Thursday chilling out not really doing much, then on Friday I met a guy called Paul in the hostel who is from the UK but now has residency out here and restores old warbirds - and we went on a steamship tour down Lake Wakatipu which is the lake that Queenstown sits on. We also hit a local pool club where we came out pretty even, then ate fergburgers (yum - gourmet burgers - although (Nat and Austen) the burger we had at the Novotel in the Docklands is still the best), then played blackjack in the casino where I doubled my $20 which I used for my entry into the ice bar that was downstairs. It's a vodka bar where everything is made from ice, even the glasses you drink out of, and is set at a rather cool minus 5 degrees, hence the name "Minus 5".
Anyways, Paul left to return to Auckland this morning so I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend chilling out and trying to plan a few days out to Te Anau, Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound for maybe next weekend.
So that's pretty much what I've been doing for the last week. Will write more when I have more news...
Take care everyone, and a belated Happy Easter to you all.
Suz xx
On Monday we (Maggie and I) walked up to the Puzzling World. This is one of those places where pretty much all you say is "how did they do that?", but it did answer some of the questions I'd had in Lord of the Rings in respect of how they had a guy who was over 6 foot playing a dwarf smaller than a hobbit without too much digital trickery. There were also these wierd portraits where it was like someone had pressed their face into a sheet of plastic and let it mould to their features - so they were indented into the wall - but yet they looked like they were leaping out at you and they followed you all around the room. There was also a room where everything was at an angle and they had those wierd black and white line thingys on the wall so as soon as I walked in those line thingys started moving and I felt sick - so Maggie had to go through on her own. It completely freaked me out.
In the afternoon we caught the Magic bus on to Queenstown. So far it seems like there's lots to do here if you have the money to spend ...
So far we've been jetboating up the Kawarau river which was great fun - thank god Maggie persuaded me to wear a waterproof as I ended up sitting at the side of the jetboat and got pretty soaked on some of the 360 degree turns! We then went up the gondola to the luge - which is the same thing I did in Rotorua. We went down 5 times without coming off once - and one point the track looks pretty much vertical when you get to the top of the peak and is followed quickly by a 180 degree bend - so we were lucky to stay on the track cos we decided we liked going down that bit pretty fast... We also hit the casino to play blackjack and came off slightly better than we went in.
On Wednesday, Maggie and Ray headed out to Milford Sound. This part is already covered by my Magic bus pass and they were hiring a car to do it, so I've stayed on in Queenstown. I spent Wednesday and Thursday chilling out not really doing much, then on Friday I met a guy called Paul in the hostel who is from the UK but now has residency out here and restores old warbirds - and we went on a steamship tour down Lake Wakatipu which is the lake that Queenstown sits on. We also hit a local pool club where we came out pretty even, then ate fergburgers (yum - gourmet burgers - although (Nat and Austen) the burger we had at the Novotel in the Docklands is still the best), then played blackjack in the casino where I doubled my $20 which I used for my entry into the ice bar that was downstairs. It's a vodka bar where everything is made from ice, even the glasses you drink out of, and is set at a rather cool minus 5 degrees, hence the name "Minus 5".
Anyways, Paul left to return to Auckland this morning so I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend chilling out and trying to plan a few days out to Te Anau, Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound for maybe next weekend.
So that's pretty much what I've been doing for the last week. Will write more when I have more news...
Take care everyone, and a belated Happy Easter to you all.
Suz xx
# posted by Sue Lambert @ 4:52 PM 
