Queenstown

We stop off in Arrowtown for some shopping including a pair of RM Williams boots for me at the ‘bargain’ price of NZ$120. We also admire the autumnal shades of brown, red, orange and yellow of the bordering deciduous woods before making our way along treacherously twisty tracks to Queenstown. Our apartment is delightful and wonderfully spacious as we are upgraded from a 2-bed to a 3-bed. We are treated to the luxuries that you would take for granted back home such as washing machine, tumble drier and fully equipped kitchen which makes a pleasant change from poky hotel rooms so we book for 3 nights.

We didn’t come all this way to luxuriate in a posh apartment so we book onto the adrenaline-filled Shotover boat. This speedboat powers at extraordinary speed down the white-water river of the same name and is a very exciting ride especially for Harley. I have to pretend everything is cool and normal, as he can’t decide to begin with whether it’s very exciting or very scary. Luckily he plumps for the former unlike Karen who squeals at every turn where we invariably narrowly miss another huge rock. The only downside is the severe wind chill factor and I hug onto Harley tightly as the driver spins us on another 360-degree turn in the narrow boulder-filled canyon.

The next stop is Coronet Peak where we have a fun snowball fight @1 degree Celsius although it’s a bit one way traffic as the kids enjoy throwing a lot more than being hit. We narrowly avoid fisticuffs with an irate line painting truck (maybe he forgot to bring the roller up before moving out of our way) and a mere 10 minutes later we witness an extraordinary scene when a bus driver refuses to give way on a bridge. So stubborn is this guy that eventually the police have to be called out to cajole him into reversing. Just as we were saying how charming and friendly the Kiwis are as well. I discover that many are descended from the Scots, hence the hard stubborn streak beneath the surface. The only difference being that the Scots don’t tend to bother with the surface, especially when dealing with the English (I think I’m entitled to say that being ¼ Scot myself).

I decide to go in search of the ‘holy grail’: namely a restrained Kiwi Pinot Noir without too much extraction, as in the previous 3 examples we’ve tried. Unfortunately Felton Road is NZ$350 in a restaurant so we go to a wine shop where you can swap your credit card for a kind of vinous hotel room key and ‘enter’ whichever bottle you like for between NZ$5 and NZ$15 a shot. All the wines from the Gibbston Valley are delicious and just as I’m getting into the tasting and racking up a decent sized bill Ruby smashes a glass (no she wasn’t tasting too) and we assuage our consciences by buying a bottle of the Mount Difficulty Pinot Noir and a Cloudy Bay Sauvignon at a reasonable price for a change.