There are travel days, and then there are TRAVEL DAYS. Tuesday the 23rd was the lower-case variety: a three-hour bus ride through wind-driven rain, passing majestic, mist-shrouded mountains, deer farms (venison is big in New Zealand), gorse-covered hills, boulder fields (much of the area was carved out by glaciers) and acres of turnips, rutabagas, and other produce. Throughout the ride, our tour director, Gary Andrews, kept us entertained (leading us through a trivia game), informed (he’s a font of fascinating factoids), and amused (he has a standup comedian’s timing). He’s high on the list of the best tour directors I’ve ever had.
After a while the fields gave way to serried vineyards, thousands of vines standing at attention awaiting the harvest. Soon we arrived at Kinross Winery, where we enjoyed a delightful lunch and four very good wines ranging from pinot gris to pinot noir. I know nothing about viniculture except how to spell it, but I’m surprised that such a rain-drenched region can produce such wonderful wines.
From Kinross, we paralleled the Remarkables mountain range, so named because a surveyor was impressed that the range runs precisely north-south. Soon we reached Queenstown, an all-season mecca for outdoor sports and home to the Kawarau Gorge Suspension Bridge, where commercial bungee jumping began; the bridge continues to serve as a launch pad for adrenaline junkies. (Cue Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” and the Beatles “If I Fell.”)
Queenstown lies at one end of 80-kilometer long, 400-meter deep Lake Wakatipu. The town is touristy and traffic-clogged but filled with restaurants, bars, outdoor equipment stores, and high-end boutiques. One restaurant, Fergburger, had a line stretching down the block. Its website says it’s known for “high-end, inventive burgers made with beef, chicken & other exotic proteins,” which leaves me wondering what a non-exotic protein is.
Our home for these two days is the gorgeous, classy Millbrook Resort, featuring a championship golf course, beautiful landscaping, spacious and tasteful accommodations, and a spectacular setting. The resort is around 20 minutes from Queenstown.
Which brings us to today, Wednesday the 24th, which was an all-caps, bolded, italicized, and underlined day of travel – not in the get-from-here-to-there sense, but in the I-may-not-be-willing-to-jump-off-a-bridge-but-I-do-like-my-thrills sense.
The thrills came in three parts: a jostling, zigzagging journey over Coronet Peak, a phenomenal jet boat ride that skittered and splashed through Skippers Canyon, and a helicopter flight back to civilization.
Over the past 25,000 years, the Shotover River has battered, bullied, and blasted out a deep gorge, known as Skippers Canyon, through the surrounding mountains. To get to the jet boat launching point, we left the pavement behind and drove up a narrow dirt road with nothing between us and the river gorge six hundred feet below.
At one point the driver had to reverse his way around a couple of curves to make room for a bus coming in the other direction. If you’re afraid of heights – as one person in our group said, “It’s not that I’m afraid of heights. I’m afraid of gravity” – sit on the left side of the vehicle, which most of the time is closest to the reassuringly solid uphill slope and farthest from the void.
The scenery is breathtaking, assuming one is not holding one’s breath in terror. We passed the ruins of old mining structures (gold was mined here for more than 100 years) and stopped for cookies and coffee at Winky’s Museum, an outdoor collection of rusty mining paraphernalia, including picks arranged in a way that reminded me of a giant dinosaur’s backbone.
We also gazed upon the Gates of Mordor and lived to tell: Peter Jackson used nearby Lighthouse Rock and Castle Rock in the Lord of the Rings movies to portray the doors of doom. (I’m not a LOTR fan, so if I’ve mischaracterized the significance of the Gates, please forgive me.)
Arriving intact and awed at the boat launch, we were issued life jackets and bundled into jet boats – small rubber rafts with impeller engines that let them operate at high speed (we topped out at 80 kph) and turn on a dime (the driver delighted in spinning 360s and coming within inches of the rock walls).
The 20-minute ride was one of the most exhilarating and energizing things I’ve ever done. I have videos of the trip, but I can’t embed them in my WordPress blog without upgrading and paying a ridiculous premium. Take my word for it: the ride is can’t-miss phenomenal!
Rather than hopping back onto the van to retrace our steps, Tauck arranged a helicopter ride from the canyon and to Queenstown Airport. We seemed to float among the mountain peaks, with the river far below and unspoiled nature in every direction. It was a spectacular ending to our adventure.
Our tour is nearly complete. We leave for Auckland tomorrow, where we’ll spend two days before heading home. I’ll make one last post about the trip from exotic Rockville, Maryland.
PuffinlessTravel 