Jet Boating on the Shotover River

The staff took this photo and the one below.

The Shotover looking up river.

One of the boats passes by the beach. You can
see how shallow the water is and how close they
come to the beach. 

A selfie on the boat during a brief
stop to watch other boats go by.

 

This is one of the iconic things to do in New Zealand and it deserves it's reputation. What fun! The overcast day didn't diminish the experience either. We drove ourselves to their headquarters on the river and joined the crowds waiting for their time slot. Two boats go out about every 15 minutes and it takes about a half an hour. They have this down to a science and thank goodness as it looks pretty dangerous. In fact they haven't had an accident for a long time and when it did happen way back, no one was hurt and it was a mechanical problem. The drivers really know their business. 

We stopped for a few minutes and watched another
boat come through a narrow spot and do "the spin".
We did a lot of these ourselves - fun!!!

There is a lot of screaming and laughing. We not only enjoyed our experience but watching the other boats. Well worth the money. We had some lunch back at our apartment and then drove down the long and winding road to Glenorchy.  The overcast weather continued but it was still really scenic. We stopped and had a nice hike up to Lookout Point with great views of the lake and the Tooth Peaks. 

It was still a gloomy day driving up to Glenorchy.

But still very scenic.

Looking inland from Lookout Point

The viewing platform on Lookout Peak looking
back to Queenstown.

That night ate the variety of leftovers in the frig. The day we arrived in Queenstown, after the Gondola trip, we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant a short walk away and bought groceries for breakfasts and at least one dinner. So we had lots of choices. Sunday started out with lots of rain so we did laundry and got caught up with computer things - several blog posts and settled our plans for Vancouver and on to NYC and Raleigh. 

There were several jet boat companies on the lake
but it didn't look as exciting as our trip.

A boardwalk extends along the lake through
town.

Scott loves to photograph birds and flowers.

Then the rain let up and sun came out. So we drove down into Queenstown and walked around. Our first impression had been poor as the main street is lined with souvenir shops etc. But as soon as we headed down to the lake, it brightened up considerably. Parks and wharfs line the lakefront with nice restaurants and pedestrian streets. We were surprised to see another White & Wong's, not realizing it was a chain. And our lunch was excellent once again and provided yet more leftovers. 

There was a big pond with tons of flowering
waterlilies.

There were several lake cruise options available but we decided to do one of them in the morning before flying out on Tuesday. So we just had a nice walk there and then over at the Botanical Gardens on a peninsula across from the town. As it was a Sunday many couples and families were out for a stroll. There was a big frisbee gold tournament going on and the bowling green had several couples participating. That's new game for us so we enjoying sitting a and watching a match.  

The beautiful bowling green.

This is the young couple we cheered on.

One of the golf frisbee groups checks on their scores. You can see Queenstown across the lake.

Finally we returned to our apartment, and later walked down to the local pub for dinner. Tomorrow was our big day - a 12 hour tour down to the Milford Sound and the Fjordland National Park. Which will be my next blog post.