Tuesday, March 20, 2007

The Folks in the Boonies - Chapter Two..

I thought I'd never get round to updating this blog. I'm not entirely sure what's been keeping me so busy but my excuse for the last 3 weeks is a prolapsed disc, say no more.....

Mind you, in that time Warren has organised the photo's, which is nice!

Now, where was I... Queenstown..

Remarkably, we made it to the airport, on time. And remarkably we were fairly hangover-free. And "remarkable", said in a very Coogan-stylee, was about to be the word of the week....

The flight to Queenstown was awesome. We'd hit lucky with the weather and as we came out of the Cantabrian clouds we entered the realm of lakes and mountains that surround Queenstown. Including "The Remarkables"...


That's a photo Dad took of The Remarkables from our apartment at the Outrigger. It really was a superb apartment, highly recommended and a great Xmas pressie from my folks who paid for our stay. Cheers!

Anyway, back to the trip. Mum and Dad had been in Queenstown about 15 years or so ago and were very surprised by how much it had grown, the airport was no longer a shack! The drive to the apartment from the airport swept us past huge construction sites and blocks of "lake view" apartments for sale, lease and holiday rent. It was much more built up than I had expected.

We struck gold with the apartment, which I'd booked online. We stayed at the "Outrigger at the Beacon" which is situated right on the lakefront. The apartment was superb, 2 beds, huge living areas, jacuzzi, full mod-cons kitchen and a huge deck with the the most amazing views out across Lake Wakatipu to The Remarkables. This is Mum and I on the deck.




The TSS Earnslaw cruised back and forth in front of us all day (you can just see her in the pic at the top of this post - click on pics to enlarge) and we'd all stand and watch her and wait for the horn to sound - what a lovely sight she was! Remarkable!

We took a trip on her to the other side of the lake where we were treated to lunch and a tour of Walter Peak High Country Farm and it's grounds, followed by wine tasting! A really lovely day out, and Dad was in his element examining the TSS Earnslaw's steam engine rooms and watching the guys keep the fires stoked.



Whereas I decided to take control of things!




In our two days in Queenstown we had a lovely time. We went up the gondola (I nearly went paragliding but had ordered food and advised not to!) and we ALL (yes, even Mum!) went on the luge at the top! Warren and I did it twice but I rather think Mum regretted doing it just once! Ah well, we're all proud she gave it a go - remarkable!




We also did one of the jet boat rides - we plonked for the Karawau Jet as my parents had done the Shotover on a previous visit. It was great.. as you can see, we were the quiet family in the back .. hahaha


We finished our trip with a scrummy meal at The Boardwalk - Dad and I shared oysters to start, nice to have someone to share them with! Yummmm!

We'll definitely be back, I still have my paragliding to do and Warren is keen on the Flying Fox. It's not somewhere we could live, it's a bit too resorty for that, but it's not a bad weekend location within driving distance, eh?

All in all, a REMARKABLE trip!

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