Apr 13th: Back to Queenstown

 Day 8 (Day 6 in New Zealand)

[Writing this on the ferry on Mon 22nd]

Breakfast was served very early: 6:30am for continental; 7am for cooked. I’m always amazed at some people’s capacity to consume vast amounts of food when it is included in the price!

The boat/ship (whatever? Who knows?) then took us on a trip right through the breathtakingly gorgeous sound up to the entrance to the Tasman Sea. It wasn’t the best weather we’ve had on the trip but still good enough to stand out on deck most if the time.

A couple of minutes into the return coach drive to Queenstown, Peanut stopped to take us on a 20 min easy walk through a bit of rain forest near the shores of Milford Sound. Once again he demonstrated incredible local knowledge, right down to different species of moss growing in tree trunks.

Our driver, “Peanut”

The rest of the journey back to Queenstown was mostly in silence to allow those who had not slept well to snooze. 

We arranged for Peanut to drop us off in downtown Queenstown. From there we had a short walk to our next adventure. A gondola (cable car) ride to the top of Bob’s Peak with stunning (it’s the only type here) views of the town below.

At the top was a restaurant but fully booked and not cheap. We had a cup of tea looking out at the view and the many people who were doing the luge rides back down. I wanted to have a go but not all of us were so keen!

Back down in the bustling town - it was now early on a Saturday evening - we wandered around the harbour “doing a David” (examining the menus outside all the restaurants and bars). Eventually we settled on an Irish pub (Pog Mahone’s) for steak & Guinness pie and a pint of the black stuff (for me) and Irish stew and a glass of Pinot noir (for Julie).

Clearly a stag night in progress

Then the local bus back to the hotel and bed!