Our first two days in NZ were spent on the north island. Now we were flying from Wellington to Queenstown, toward the bottom of the south island, where we would spend the rest of our vacation!
The view as we left Wellington
The view flying into Queenstown
It is hard to tell, but Jared and Austin are sitting in front of the window. This was the view of the mountains, lake, and forest from our rented townhouse. Gotta say, not too shabby.
On our first morning in Queenstown, we did the coolest thing! We did a two-hour Segway tour all around the town. First of all, none of us had ridden Segways before, and it was just fun. Then, we saw all the amazing scenery around town. Our guide pointed out the sights and gave us history on the town. Side note: Our guide was going to college in Queenstown. His major? Extreme Adventure Tourism. Part of his course work was to do a bungy jump!!
Holmes family in motion!
We took a couple of breaks, where we got off the segways. It felt good to 'rest' our legs. This break was at the gorgeous Botanical Garden.
Among many other trees, the garden had a few sequoias.
One of my favorite pictures of the whole trip. We were able to catch the beginning of fall colors.
This picture and the next were taken from our balcony.
In the afternoon, we took gondolas up almost to the top of this mountain.
View out the gondola
Oh look, a bungy platform
If you look very closely, there is a woman dangling from the end of the cord!!
The next part up was on chair lifts. A little hard to tell, but that is Austin down there.
After the chair lift, we all rode luges down this track. More fun!!
The luge-- kind of like a go-kart.
I knew what to expect on the way down, so I tried to get video of a jumper. Joe was telling me that I was too late, but I really wasn't.
Sunrise in the morning
Savannah and I did some souvenir shopping in town.
On another afternoon, Joe, Jared, and I took a wine tour. We visited four wineries. This is about as far south in the world that you can grow grapes. Mostly white wines are produced in NZ. I loved these roses!
Joe and Jared in the wine cave
The kids played Frisbee golf a couple of times. There was a beautiful course among the Botanical garden.
One morning we rented bikes and rode along the lake and park. Stunning!
More of our bike path
We took a drive to Arrowtown, a gold mining town close to Queenstown. This vineyard was on the way.
I know the title of this blog post is Queenstown, but I am just sneaking in these few of Arrowtown. Don't worry, Austin is wearing his boot here more as a precaution.
It was a picture-perfect day in Arrowtown.
Farewell to Queenstown
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