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As you have probably figured out by now we are big kids at heart. We arrived in Queenstown – the adrenalin capital of the world – and managed to do none of it! Our highlight was the luge and the beer!

We drove down from Wanaka via Cromwell and Arrowtown. Both quaint little towns.  Cromwell had built a replica of its old town on the archaeological remains found.  Arrowtown is an old gold mining town that is still where the money’s at! This has a beautiful couple of streets that are full of very nice shops and restaurants. We ate crepes at Bonjour and bought delicious French cheese and bread for tea to go with the wonderful Blackball venison salami we took a detour to go and buy near Greymouth.

We stopped to see Roaring Meg on the Shotover river and then one of the A J Hackett bungys.

 

So Queenstown.  Well our first evening was surprisingly good weather so we had a wander about town, then decided to go up the gondola in case we missed the weather opportunity again.

 

 

And after admiring the beautiful views we went and grabbed a pint in pub on the Wharf which did fabulous beers and then went and hit the crazy golf!  This was an indoor course and so different.  There were lots of moving parts and sounds on the courses.  It is well worth the money if you have kids.  The basic idea of each hole is that you shoot into a building/mountain or some equivalent and then your ball comes out in one of three places and it may involve some kind of lift in the process.

 

 

The following morning having remembered our age, we decided the only thing to do was to go and play the outside mini golf!  This course was pretty much identical to the one we played in Taupo and was nothing special.  After this we went on the jet boat at Skippers Canyon (post to follow).

Coming back and feeling a little dizzy we decided to get a little more dizzy in the Sensory Maze.  This was great – filled with mirrored rooms to get out of, jungles and glow in the dark balloon pools.   There are no photos of this as they take your money then strip you of all of your possessions even your shoes.  I’m embarrassed to say we got stuck in a dark area for a long time unable to find the way out!

After this we treated ourselves to the nice Pub on the Wharf again followed by a Fergburger tea for Mike!  Fergburger is a famous burger joint in Queenstown.  They are open 8.30am-5am and constantly have queues out of the doors. It’s become a must do for most people visiting the town.  On his first visit Mike simply had the Fergburger with cheese and I helped him out with the tomatoes in it. I didn’t fancy a burger so just had a date scone from their bakery which was also very good.

Our final day was a race to complete all of the other kids activities on offer, let’s forget the bungee jumping, skydiving, paragliding and white water rafting!  We first went to play frizbee golf after hiring frizbees in town.  This was a rubbish course compared to Wanaka as most of it was in the woods so we didn’t get the views and being amateurs our frizbee kept getting stuck in the trees.

 

After this we took the gondola again back up the peak. From here we both had 5 rides of the luge. We loved this and guess what Mike beat me to the bottom each time. I felt very brave and used the chair lift to the top of the luge!

 

 

After a couple of drinks at the top (hardcore – peppermint tea for me) we went back down and onto our next activity – The Dark Ride.  This is a motion 3D ride where you have to shoot things as you go. They had a couple of different films and the seats moved individually.  We had the patter about it being the latest technology and hadn’t even hit Disney or universal yet! Anyway, I’m sure you can guess who won but we both loved it!

Queenstown

 

After a few beers and Mike finding a pub that did cheesy chips and gravy we went back to Fergburger so we could both have another try.  Mike went for Sweet Bambini – venison burger, plum sauce, lettuce, tomato and onion.  I had the Tropical Swine – beef burger, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pineapple and relish.  They were both huge and very delicious.  Definitely worth the wait so don’t be put off by the queue. They have a well managed system so your order is taken and then you are given a number and there are big screens so you know when yours is ready.