Enjoying God's Goodness: Out and About in Queenstown

I'll start off with some views from the Rydges Lakeland Resort where we are staying in Queenstown. Truly beautiful!

Tuesday we had a nice breakfast at the hotel. Pretty much every place we have stayed has had a good variety of nice fruits. I eat a lot of fruit for breakfast and lunch. Most all have had great granola, too. Many have had a variety of coconut, nuts, seeds, raisins, and two even have a bowl of dried fruits to add to the granola. I'm happy! Every one has had eggs, cooked tomatoes, bad hash browns and baked beans.

I haven't eaten much of that!

We left the hotel right after breakfast to go to the lookout over the city and surrounding area by taking a gondola up. The sky was pretty that morning tho it was a little windy.

Here are the views from the top...

Was really fun to watch some bungee jumping - but they just jumped and swung around for a few minutes- it wasn't off a bridge and there was no water. Still pretty exciting. We could hear them yelling above the sounds of the city and the wind.

Here's the bungee complex from the top

And

Here's the platform they jump from.

Was hard to get pics of a jumper but you can see the cord.

This summer the kids want to give me a sky dive for my 70th birthday! Somehow I feel more secure doing that than bungee jumping!

They had three artist renderings made from colorful BEANS on one walk at the top. I liked this one from Lord of the Rings. We are going on a LOTR tour on Thursday !

For lunch we took a scenic drive out to the little town of Arrowtown in the country. It was a key site during the gold rush days ~~ very quaint and easy to get around. We went to a little bakery/cafe for lunch and then took a hike down by the creek on the edge of town - about 2 blocks away.

This picture spot was at the local post office/gift store!

This set of four pictures gives you a small sample of the scenery in this amazing area. They call the mountains around here the southern alps. The pictures were taken from the moving bus so some parts are fuzzy.

It's late fall here. They have already had some snow. It's cloudy today but not rain or snow expected! I did buy a fleece jacket today tho. We are finding it quite chilly after the hot humid weather in Australia!

Our next stop was the site of the very first commercial Bungee Jumping establishment in the world!!! We got to see several jumps.

You enter the building from street level and go down a long wide spiral staircase. It was the most dramatic entrance to a gift shop I have every seen. From there we could walk out to a viewing area.

Very fun watching!

Then we discovered we could walk right out onto the bridge and see them jump from the top!

Here's the view from the top...both ways....back and front.

Read the fine print...

Here's a gal all strapped in contemplating her jump!

Very cool to see the whole operation from every angle - without doing the jump.

We did find out they let 75 + age people jump for free!!! Andy says we will be back for that!

Gibbston Valley winery was the final stop of the afternoon. It was a fun place with much to see and learn. They had a couple of very nice gift shops to entertain us while we waited for your tour and wine tasting. All very well done.

Every been in a wine cave!?! It was a storage area for 400 kegs of wine. The barrels are solid oak made in France - best ones available. They cost one to two thousand dollars a piece. Think about it - even before you add the wine, that's over $400, 000 in the cave!

The tour started on the hill with the vineyards. They are in the process of picking the grapes now...

Then we headed to the wine cave. It was all very nicely done. Clean and neat...

At the end of the tour - at the end of the cave, we had the wine tasting. I liked the first one the rest - a Riesling. Very smooth and not too strong...can you tell I don't know much about the lingo?

What a great day - we did a lot but each thing was fun and interesting - plus we rode around in a beautiful coach, resting between each event. We got back to the hotel for a bit of a break before we were on the go again.

Are you still with me??? Keep in mind I blog for ME as much as I do for you! It helps me remember where we were, what we did and what I was thinking - for when I scrapbook !

After our little rest, we all walked along the river down to downtown Queenstown to board an old steamship, The TSS Earnslaw, for an incredible 45 minute ride across the Wakatipu River. Our destination was Walter Peak, one of New Zealand's most famous sheep and cattle stations (what we would call a ranch).

Enjoy the scenery with us as we rode down the lake at dusk and watched the sky change along the way.......

We could go anywhere we wanted on the ship. There was a museum, the engine room, the deck....

This picture sorta shows the guy shoveling the coal in the hot stove!

Here we are at the dock and heading up to the house for dinner.

I have not eaten that much in years! Salads, breads, potatoes, sweet corn.... the meats included beef, pork, lamb, fish, and chicken. And the desserts - to die for.

Dinner lasted about 1 1/2 hours.

And the evening was just getting started! We moved outside and learned about sheep dogs - their personalities and their jobs - each one different.

One ran out of the arena and up the hill in the dark at the command of the shepherd. She came back with about 15 sheep. The shepherd gave different commands and away they went, following each command. I've never seen sheep run that fast. They look kind of slow and lazy when you see them grazing! It was informative and entertaining.

Did you know a well trained sheep dog costs thousands of dollars???

At one point the dog split the mob (that's what we would call the herd). On mob ran off back up the hill and the other stayed and was corralled by the eye dog.

Eventually we moved into seats in the barn to see a sheep sheared. How interesting! It takes a professional shearer about 90 seconds! He does 300 to 350 in a day!

Unfortunately these are not in order but you get the idea...