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  • Day 19

    Cruising Queenstown

    June 5, 2016 in New Zealand ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    Just Queenstown today
    Had a leisurely breakfast while we enjoyed the fresh crisp morning, officially -1c but chill factor of -5c.
    So when the frost had lifted a little we took the van park shuttle bus into town for our 11.30 Segway tour.
    Plenty of people about doing stuff on the water while we stayed on dry land. The Segway people picked us up in a mini van and took us to a carpark, about 1km away where we were "trained" in the dark art of Segway riding. After we had read & signed a disclaimer, absolving them in case we ran over over any pedestrians. Funny how the jetboats were much more dangerous but no disclaimers there.
    Sue decided it was not for her and decided to wander the town on foot rather than on 2 wobbly wheels. The rest of us (7 of us) zoomed around until we thought we wee pretty good, only Simon & Michelle had done this before, so they were just showing off.
    Ready for real world we set off at a sedate pace, weaving thru pedestrians, shopping centres & stopping along the way for our guides to give us a few bits of info about Queenstown.
    They told us that Queenstown is based on 4 "rushes", the 1st was the Greenstone /Jade by the Maori, then the Gold Rush in the 1800s, then the White rush, the snow and ski influx and now it is the Adrenaline Rush, with all the action sports both winter & summer.
    Did 1 uphill & 1 downhill, then they upped our speed limiters a bit to 12km/hr. We went around the bay, thru some suburban streets and up into the botanical gardens where we stopped and the guides showed us how to play frisbee golf. The gardens have an 18 hole course. Looks like fun.
    Continued back through the warf area, thru the crowds, waving at Sue as we wizzed by. Then they increased our max speed to 20km/hr for the final jaunt home, returning to the gravel carpark and handing back these great little machines. Bundled back into the van and dropped off back into town where we met up with Sue.
    On recommendation we headed straight to the most famous burger joint in NZ, Fergburgers who make 20 different types of hamburger. As it was 2.30pm, we were lucky there was only a 20 min wait, apparently in summer there is a 2 hour wait. Finally lucked a table just before our order was ready, just as well as they are very hard to eat standing up, without about 6 paper towels each. I had the plain burger, the others had the same with bacon & avocado. We all agreed it was most likely the best burger we had ever eaten. Yummo!
    After that culinary extravagance we had a nice long walk around the CBD before the cold drove us into a pub for a warm seat & a cold drink. As it was getting on to dark, we went up to the gardens where there was an electric light show, using light to highlight the natural park features or create their own. Very nice, would be lovely at night but we would have frozen by then.
    Walked back to Fergburgers, the bakery side this time and bought some delicious pies & pastries for our last supper in NZ. Got some wine to wash it down with to complete the scene.
    Took the shuttle bus back to the van park, grabbed the chairs next to fire and shared our spoils while picking out our own individual highlights / memorable moments from our fantastic trip.

    Weather was sparkling cold and crystal clear, max about 10c

    Highlights
    * Segway tour around the bay,
    * Fergburgers burgers for lunch,
    * Fergburgers pies etc for dinner,
    * casual walk around Queenstown
    * nice warm log fire, wine, dinner & a good ol chat between friends (still) and travelling companions.
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