Boardwalk strolls

Our camping spot is half way between Queenstown and the town of Glenorchy so we decided today to head in the opposite direction to the way we have driven the past couple of days and visit this small town. The road hugs the lakeside so we had a lovely scenic drive on the way there and back. Because we have to leave this campsite by 9 each day we've been getting up rather early to make sure we are all set up and ready to leave on time. These early mornings seemed to have caught up with us so before we set off on our planned walking route we visited a local cafe and gift shop for a caffeine hit. The place was tiny and only fitted one table inside but it was so refreshing to find a gift shop with items to buy that we haven't come across before. Everything was handmade in New Zealand and most of it locally. We haven't bought many things from our travels for ourselves and we fell in love with a set of 3 Christmas decorations of our favourite NZ birds so we just had to have them. I have a feeling our future home will be filled with many memories of our time here in this incredible country. We set off on our planned walk today which was a track mainly on a boardwalk over the lagoons and swamp style land next to the town. The fog and mist had descended so we couldn't see anything beyond the lagoons but we still had a pleasant easy stroll around the area. It was a little tricky in places if you met someone coming the other way especially if you were passing on a stretch that was over water. Luckily neither of us fell in! After a good explore it was back in the van to drive back to Queenstown. We visited our favourite supermarket, Pak'n'save and stocked up on about 2 weeks worth of food knowing that we wouldn't come across one in a while. We then headed to our freedom camping spot for the night which was the other side of Queenstown in a carpark for a bungy jump place. We couldn't actually be there until after 6pm so we were worried about being in our van before this time. We took the opportunity to head down to the bridge and watch people jump off into the gorge below. It makes you feel quite sick watching it as you feel as if you will fall too and it definitely confirmed to us that it's not something we want to try. After spending time watching more jumpers and going on a walk we headed back at 6pm to settle down for the night. It's surprising how many people ignored the signs and were happy to not only turn up early but also park outside the camping zone. Clearly some people aren't as worried about the threatened $200 fine as we are!Read more