Views, views and even more views

Hello beautiful Queenstown. I don't think I've ever seen a place more orientated towards tourism than Queenstown. We had a little bit of a lie in this morning and luckily my headache had almost completely gone, almost. We had a lovely scenic drive to Queenstown stopping at many lookout points. Most of the journey was up a road that hugs Lake Wakatipu and beyond the lake are dramatic mountains so every curve and bend of the drive was pretty spectacular to look at. It wasn't long before we arrived in Queenstown and having researched where to park previously on Campermate, our favourite app, we found a cheap carpark with larger spaces for campervans. As we walked to town that's when we discovered how tourist aimed this town is. They have it great in both seasons with extreme sports and walks in summer and skiing in winter. 3 out of 4 shops were tourist booking shops or stores that sell appropriate clothing for those booked activities. Luckily as we passed the main street more regular shops popped up along with loads of gift shops that pretty much sell exactly the same things. We walked down to the lake and truly got to experience the beautiful setting this town is in. The trees were covered in autumn colours so everything was made even more lovely to look at. Strolling around the Queenstown gardens we saw a new mixed breed species of duck. From our wildlife tour in Dunedin we learnt that Mallard ducks were introduced to the country by the British and he mentioned they've now bred with another species of duck. Turns out that species is a rather large white duck which has created very big whiter Mallard ducks. It was quite weird to see Mallard ducks, this white species and the new cross bred species all together in one spot. We also discovered a new sport in this park called frisbee golf. They have metal funnels surrounded by chains and the idea is to throw your frisbee in through the chains. We didn't give it a go because I think you need your own frisbee, but it did look highly amusing. One girls frisbee even rolled down and ended up in the lake. After meandering around some more and visiting the information centre to see what we'd like to do here we decided to call it a day and get to our freedom camp spot early. There's no freedom camping n Queenstown so we are staying in the closest one 40 minutes away. We'd forgotten that we couldn't arrive until 5pm and were worried we'd get a fine if we were early so we waited in a layby down the road playing hangman to pass the time until it got to 5. Luckily we were only 45 minutes early or so we didn't have to sit trying to think of film titles for too long! Our camp spot is right on the lake front and despite the hundreds of sandflies we are feeling like we may spend all our nights here while visiting Queenstown.Lue lisää