Winter Weekend in Queenstown

This weekend we headed to Queenstown, NZ's adventure capital and skiing/shopping/see and be seen locale.  I'm thinking it's like Aspen might be, but I've never been to Aspen. Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of New Zealand, because you can paraglide, bungy jump, bungy swing, jet boat, parasail, and more in addition to go skiing and snowboarding.  There are fancy stores mingled in with souvenir shops, coffee shops, and delicious restaurants.

Luckily, Vanessa and friends are well-connected to people with nice holiday homes, so we were fortunate enough to have a lovely place to stay in Kelvin Heights, just across the lake and a 20 minute drive from Queenstown.  We got there just as the sun was setting on Friday night and spent the evening playing Sequence which is now everyone's favorite game.

Saturday we headed into Queenstown nice and early, so we could attempt to see it all in one day.  We walked through the (frozen) botanical gardens, did some shopping, walked through an outdoor craft fair by local artisans, had lunch, did some wine tasting, rode the gondola to the top of the mountain, watched people bungy and paraglide, rode the gondola down, and headed home for dinner and to watch the All Blacks game. It's definitely a place we will go back and visit in the summer.  We've already got plans to be there in early January.  While there is no way in hell, I'll be doing any bungy jumping, I just might go paragliding.
The coolest wine tasting place...there are about 80 bottles in these machines and you just push the button to get either a taste, a half glass or a full glass.  It add the charge to your card, and then you pay at the end.  So cool!




We took a gondola ride to the mountain top for some beautiful view of Queenstown and The Remarkables (the mountains across the way) which were heavily featured in Lord of the Rings.

Paragliders

On our way out of town, we saw the most interesting stone wall and with the mountains in the background, we couldn't pass up stopping!

This was us all the time. Stop car, get out, take pictures mountains, praise Vanessa's friend Frances for being patient with us.

On our way home on Sunday, we stopped by Gore to visit Vanessa's parents.  Gore is the world capital of brown trout fishing, so we made sure to take our picture in front of the brown trout statue.

A couple of towns over from Gore is Clinton, so they renamed the highway in between the two The Presidential Highway.  Apparently, they call the back route The Lewinsky Highway, but there's no sign for that.  He he he.

To see all our Queenstown pictures, click here.