New Zealand | Day 4 | Queenstown to Te Anau | Tuesday, Feb 1st 2011

Alright, so it's time to catch up on the IOUs.  On Monday night we drove from Mt. Cook down to Queenstown, and it was just about sunset when we pulled into town.  WOW.  I immediately regretted that we had only planned a short day in that gorgeous city.  Situated along Lake Wakatipu, it has steep slopes lined with evergreens and has an amazing mountainous backdrop that includes The Remarkables, a craggy looking group of spires that is also home to a ski resort in the winter. Now, the bad news.  It was too late to take photos that night, and after we got back from our rafting trip the clouds had moved in. So, you're going to have to search Queenstown on google images to see what it looks like. Sorry. I don't know if photos would do it justice anyway.

We got to our hotel to find an envelope taped to the front door with my name written on it and the room key enclosed (it's fairly common for front desks to only be open until 8pm) which answered any questions we may have had regarding the safety of the area.  Once we got up to the room, I was once again sad that we were only staying one night.  The beds were comfy,  the room was modern and clean, AND Coronation Lodge also has 5 different channels as opposed to the customary 2. Sweet. Definitely the best place we've stayed thus far.

Anywho, we passed out for about 7 hours, and were up bright and early for our jetboat ride / rafting trip.  The weather was gorgeous and we headed downtown to find our departure point.  The Shotover Jet and Queenstown Rafting are separate businesses, but have bases right next to each other on the river, which I'm sure isn't a coincidence, but boy does it work nicely for the consumer. The shuttle took us right down to the dock and we suited up for our 25 minute ride.  It doesn't sound very long, but when you're whipping down a river gorge and spinning 360 degrees in a few inches of water every couple of minutes, that's all the time you need.  The driver maneuvers the boat within inches of the canyon walls, and makes it all seem effortless. AWESOME! So awesome, that we totally bought the photo and video package to show off (the 'e-story' is all we can show for now b/c we don't have a disc drive to upload the video).  Please note my fantastic raccoon eyes courtesy of Mt. Cook and also the fact that there are 5 people in our boat but like 15 in all the other photos (our DVD has footage of our actual trip).

After that, we strolled across the lawn and picked up our rafting gear.  I had really great intentions of using the waterproof camera to capture our rafting action, but all I got was this sweet picture of Clark doing paddle guitar before we got on the river. You can get the gist of the trip by watching this video. 

The rafting trip wrapped up by noon, and we took the shuttle back into town.  We were both pretty hungry from our action-packed morning, so we walked over to Fergburger, which is a local favorite, and understandably so.  I had a little photo-op with the burger awesomeness.  As you can see, the burger was roughly the size of my face. Key word: was.

As we were eating, the clouds rolled in, and we took that as a signal we should get going towards Te Anau (pronounced tay AH-new), about a 2 hour drive south.  Upon arrival, we checked in to our hotel, only to receive grimaces after announcing our trekking plans for the following day.  "There are supposed to be a terrible storms coming in over the next few days.  Are you sure you want to go?". Yes, we were sure.