Monday, August 13

Monday, August 13

Josh and I woke up to another great morning. Mostly sunny with some clouds but not too shabby to step out of bed and be able to walk 10 steps to the second floor balcony to take in the view of the snow capped mountain peaks and lake below. It was our first time to see the view that this house had since we'd arrived last night in total darkness. The view was worth the wait!

We got ready that morning and had our first oat breakfast of the trip. I haven't had oats in awhile (well, technically I guess it was at the end of May when we stayed with the Ashburton Rotarians) and they were really good. I am a huge fan of eating outside and taking in the view if you've got one so I took my breakfast out to the downstairs balcony. What a great start to the day.

Of course, I got cold after awhile so I headed back inside. We were out of the house around 10 so we could take in the views from the top of Bob's Peak riding the gondola to reach the top. Upon reaching the parking lot, we were some of the first people there so we got excellent parking (although we were still nervous about getting a parking ticket as this was the place we'd received our ticket in May so we asked the guy at the ticket booth if we were alright where we'd parked). We purchased our tickets to the top and 3 luge rides each...Josh's mom opted out of the luge ride but that meant we had a photographer as we traveled up the ski lift to the luge track and as we raced down the track as well.

Before luging, we took in the view of the snow covered Remarkables which look MUCH BETTER in the winter. They are way more impressive covered in snow! We luged two times before stopping for a coffee break.

Josh and I had mochachinos and I had a piece of ham quiche and Josh ordered a bowl of wedges. It was a great snack and the only bummer was that the seating area with the best view had been blocked off for a function that was taking place later in the day. After our snack, we hit the luge for our final ride of the day.

This was my best ride because the breaks on my luge were really loose so if you wanted to stop, you had to pull really hard on them. This made my last ride absolutely THRILLING and I loved every second of it. That's why as we left the mountain, Josh and I took a picture with the luging advertisement: "Once is never enough." Really, I love the luge!

After the gondola and luge, we drove into Queenstown so that Josh's folks could do some souvenir shopping (we saw the TSS Earnslaw as we were walking around).

After shopping, we were ready for some lunch so we headed to Winnie's for some gourmet pizza. We each ordered our own half of a pizza. I had Italian, Josh had Mexican, Farolyn had Thai and Kathy had Hawaiian. The pizza was super great and we sampled the different flavours we each had. The environment was also really nice with a big fireplace and outdoor dining on the balcony.

After lunch, we headed to the Minus 5 Ice Bar. They dress you up in big coats and you go into a room filled with ice sculptures and the bar is even made of ice. For $25 NZD/person you get one drink and the experience. I'm glad I did it once but I wouldn't do it again...but you just gotta love the Eiffel Tower ice sculpture!

After our ice bar experience, we walked back to the car and saw the most amazingly beautiful sunset. Check it out:

When we reached the holiday home, we had another great sunset view from the balcony and Josh's dad started us another fire in the woodburner. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the smokepipe thing gets hot too and even though my fingers just grazed the surface for a second, I burned three of my fingers to the point that the tips got small blisters. It wasn't too serious though and it healed up in a couple of days. We watched another DVD that night (Ice Runner~a movie so bad you have many laughs) before going to bed.

I slept with my glasses on that night so that anytime I woke up I would be able to clearly see the stars. I remember waking up and viewing the Little Dipper at one point before falling back to sleep.