Queenstown 1

The Remarkables, Lake Wakatipu, and Queenstown

Our trip to Queenstown was excellent.  It is a beautiful town on a large lake surrounded by incredible (some might even say remarkable) mountains.  The first thing we did was take the skyline Gondola above the town and did the luge.  The luge had awesome scenery as you can see, and was really easy to control, both speed and turns.  Unfortunately my head was far to large for the biggest helmet they had, which is why I look a little bit like the happy kid.

Johnny luging in front of the Remarkables

Sweet Helmets

The next morning we got up early to go paragliding.  Queenstown is the extreme sport capital of NZ and they literally have it all.  The paragliding was outside of Queenstown just in a valley.  There were small villages we could see, but it was basically just gorgeous mountains, emerald rivers, green grass and sheep.  A big wind came up just as we got up and they had to bring us down pretty quick which was disappointing, but we get to go again for free when we go back so it's not all that bad.

Mae flying with her Chilean guide

The small town of Arrowtown is about 15 km outside of Queenstown, visible from our flight actually, and was well worth the visit.  The river behind us in the picture was in Lord of the Rings when Arwen rescues Frodo and crosses the river into Rivendell, it actually looked just like the movie.