Living like royalty in Queenstown

Queenstown is a very pretty and modern tourist resort wedged between Lake Wakatipu and the base of Bobs Peak in the Remarkables mountain range. It is also a very mountainous  town making the walk back to our accommodation a work-out in itself but the views make it all worthwhile. From our bed we can see a dusting of icing-sugar soften the stark, angular face of the Remarkables as it sweeps down to the lake.

The view from the top of the gondola ride on Bob's Peak is also quite remarkable, especially when we realised that the 'short-cut' we took from Wanaka to Queenstown is actually the highest public road in New Zealand. We stopped counting the hairpin bends when they started to number in the double digits.

The town centre is well-planned with stylish architecture and is buzzing with life. During the winter it is a ski town and when there's no snow it's adrenaline central with power-boating, hang gliding, sky diving, white-water rafting, bungy jumping... the list goes on. Nic and I have been very restrained here and limited ourselves to five luge trips from the very top of Bob's Peak down to the top of the Gondola ride. That, and an impromptu, Tarzan-style attempt to cross a river on a swing-rope. We did, however, stop to take time to smell the roses in Queenstown gardens.

After two weeks on the road staying in one place for three days and night is bliss, especially when the converted garage we are staying in has excellent views and central heating! On our first morning we were disturbed by a second world war air-raid siren wailing across the town. For a brief moment we wondered what it meant. Avalanche? No snow. Earthquake? No shaking. Volcano? No way. It was warm in bed and we figured we would wait to see if anyone else moved. They didn't so neither did we. I guess the Kiwi sense of 'C'est la vie' is starting to rub off on us.

Despite the freezing temperatures (and the 'extreme fire-risk!), we don't want to leave here but maybe we should be careful what we wish for. It turns out that the beautiful red sunset that welcomed us into Queenstown wasn't an ordinary winter sunset - it was an ash-cloud sunset that may well mean a delayed departure from this wonderful country. Oh well, there are worse places to get stuck. :-)