Queenstown and surrounds: Woah.

It seems useless to try to describe how pretty the scenery here is. I have so many awesome photos from the past few days that the thought of sorting through them and selecting just a FEW to post is extremely daunting. Just out of sheer blog exhaustion I’m going to keep them to a minimum this time around, though I’ll probably upload a lot more to Flickr once I’m home.

Speaking of “home,” I’m going to be there in a week. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around this fact. So I won’t! Instead I’ll write about Queenstown a bit.

The bus ride into the Queenstown area took us up into the mountains. At one point we were actually more than a thousand meters above sea level, which is some pretty decent altitude. The terrain is really interesting in this area, very rocky with tufts of yellowish grass and plantlife sprouting out of it. I didn’t get any decent pictures out of the window of the bus, but there are some from the next couple of days that show what I mean. And there was snow up in the hills!

On the way down the views were amazing. I could drive around this area for a long time and never get bored of it.

When we’d finally wound our way down, down, down to the city (the road kept weaving back and forth along the mountainside), I started wondering if I would recognize the Remarkables. I have this difficulty with translating 2D to 3D images, see. But when I looked up, I KNEW right away what I was seeing.

This mountain range – and various pieces of it – are used MANY times in Lord of the Rings. The next time I watch it I’m going to have to keep my eyes open for ‘em. (A lot of the time they aren’t snow-capped, though.)

I got settled into my hostel (which has been booked solid the whole time I’ve been here – I am VERY glad that I booked my room well in advance) and explored the city a little. The waterfront is really nice, the view of the Remarkables and the other mountains (which literally surround the city) is really breathtaking. Nestled into the top of this mountain is a restaurant/cafe, which is technically accessible via a walking trail, but more easily via gondola.

That night I wrote a bunch of postcards (which I sent the next day – TWELVE in all) and hit the sack fairly early. The next day I intended to parasail, but it was too windy so they weren’t operating. So I went up in the gondola instead and visited that restaurant/observation area. The gondola ride was great, though quite short. It literally feels like you’ee being lifted straight up in the air (and you practically are – I’m not sure what the gradient is, but… well, you can judge:)

The view from the observation deck was straight out of the postcards that many of you will receive. Note the Remarkables just hanging out in the background, being majestic.

I had an ulterior motive beyond sightseeing for this gondola ride, however. And that was: THE LUGE!

I had originally thought that the luge was an alternative way to get down from the mountain – as in, you get strapped in and get shot back down along a luge track. This, sadly, was not to be. However, the reality was just about as awesome. There are two 800-meter long tracks, one “scenic” and the other “advanced.” The “luge” is really more like a gravity-powered go kart, but this makes it no less awesome. The thing that scared the crap out of me at first, though, was this:

You’re carried up to the top of the luge track by a little ski lift. Now, I can handle gondolas and that sort of thing like a pro. But the whole “swinging out in the open air on a little seat” business that is involved in a ski lift DEFINITELY tripped my fear of heights. But I wasn’t about to miss out on the luge experience, so I sucked it up and went for it. It WAS kind of freaky at first, but not nearly as bad as I thought it’d be. I found out later that you could walk up to the top if you wanted to, but it was a fair trek and I was glad to have the experience of just going for it and getting over that initial fear.

The luge ride itself is SO FUN. The cars are quite small and I had to rearrange myself in them somewhat in order to apply the brakes effectively, but I had good control over my speed and the steering was solid. And you can really get up some SPEED on those things! I’d bought two luge rides, but I bought a third one once I was up there – I just had to try it ONE more time. (The fact that you have AMAZING scenery in the background as you zip down this thing only adds to the awesomeness of it.)

I went back down the gondola later and frittered away some of the afternoon in coffee shops, writing and reading a little. I went to see “Mama Mia” that night in theatres, and it was heaps of fun! Very enjoyable. I love Meryl Streep, it’s just that simple. (The whole theatre was in gales of laughter every time Pierce Brosnan sang, however.)

The next morning I got picked up at 8AM for the first of two half-day “Lord of the Rings” tours. These weren’t as specialized to Lord of the Rings as the one in Wellington had been – we did go to a few locations, and see some others from afar, but for the most part we did a lot of sightseeing in the Queenstown area. This was no less awesome, however. The terrain here, as I mentioned earlier, is really interesting. I’ll post a couple of the best photos, but I have a lot more that I’ll put up earlier. I’m glad I booked a tour for it, as almost every area we went to was ONLY accessible via really rough “off road” routes. We bounced over mud and fallen trees and through rivers and all sorts of fun stuff.

Another bonus was that my guide had a lot of knowledge about the area, be it geographical or social and political, so he was really interesting to listen to. We also saw some locations that were used during the filming of the Wolverine movie! I’m looking forward to seeing it in theatres to see if I recognize any of them.

At one point we were driving along a road with a sheer drop of at LEAST a hundred feet, with maybe a foot of leeway between the wheels and DEATH. Obviously the road is used all the time and my guide was extremely comfortable driving on them, but I will admit that I DID spent a certain amount of time with my intestines in a definite twist.

I have some specific “Lord of the Rings” locations, but I’m going to save them for when I’m home and have the luxury of a little time (and Photoshop). These ones are going to take a little more work and explaining, too. However, I’ll give you just this one for free:

On this stretch of snow that joins these mountaintops is where, on the way to the pass of Caradhras, Frodo dropped the ring, and Boromir picked it up. “It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing… such a little thing…”

Okay, I’ll give you one more, because it’s easy to explain:

This is the river Anduin, just about where the Fellowship encounter the Pillars of the Kings, the Argonath (those giant statues).

That night I got in touch with my friend C, who lived in my neighbourhood while we were going to university together. She and her friend K were in town, so I met up with them and we went out drinking for a while and had a great time.

Today C was off snowboarding, and I had WANTED to parasail but the wind was STILL too high, so instead me and K went luge riding and generally hung out for most of the day. We had a ball with the luge, I need to get filthy stinking rich so I can build a luge track of my own. So I’m not going to parasail after all, which sucks, but the luge was a LOT of fun and it was also WAY cheaper. It all works out in the end.

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