Kaye's Parents Part 2 - Nov/Dec 09

Last January, Eric and I only stopped in Queenstown for lunch as we were passing through, so I was excited to see more of the 'adventure capital of NZ'. Not that I was really up for any of the crazy things Queenstown has to offer (don't think bungee jumping or jet boats are really my thing...), but you certainly can't beat the location! We started off with a hike called the Queenstown Hill Time Walk, which starts from town and leads to 360 degree views in all directions, of the city, the lake, and the mountains. That is Queenstown down below.
And Dad at the top:
Mom taking pictures along the way:360 degree views from the top:

This seemed like a Lord of The Rings type setting to me, chasing after some orcs or something, haha. They have tons of Lord of The Rings tours around Queenstown (we were thisclose to going on one! It was in 4WD vehicles, so we figured there would be some awesome views...although some of the tours were really advertising the whole, you get to try on the costumes and play with the swords. We weren't really too eager for that part, we just wanted some nice views! Anyways, the day we were going to go ended up being really overcast and foggy so we decided against it), as a lot of the movie was filmed in the area. They have whole books you can buy that details where in NZ every scene was filled - you can even visit the Shire up in the North Island. One afternoon Mom and I went to the Queenstown Gardens, located on a small peninsula right by town. Some beautiful rose gardens, probably the nicest lawn bowling club ever, and a frisbee golf course (I had never seen one of those before - tons of people were playing though). Here's Mom by one of the huge old trees.On our last day, instead of going on the LOTR tour, we drove up to the Glenorchy area ourselves. A really windy road along the lake, with lots of multiple day hikes leaving from this area. Mark this one down as a place to come back to!Queenstown itself was great too, we had some really great dinners overlooking the lake, did some shopping, I found more paths along the water to run along. And there is so much to do - we didn't make it up the gondola, or to any wineries, or on one of the Dart River tours that everyone kept recommending. Who wants to come visit next??