Queenstown, New Zealand - Day 2

Loretta Whitehurst (in front) Steve Bretzke, Randy & Jan Robinson jetboating up the Dart River

This morning we woke up and had our leisure breakfast buffet as usual in the Millbrook Resort restaurant. We were told that today, we were going to get wet! So shorts were the order of the day. However, when we got out of our room, we noticed it was a bit chili! Someone said it was going to warm up quickly. Even so, I was about to go back and wear something warmer than shorts and a T-shirt, but it appeared the bus was leaving soon, and after all, they said it would warm up soon.

We also left both of our cameras in our room and took our "underwater" camera which could get wet, but didn't give us the same quality photos as our other cameras.

The bus ride was quite interesting. It was almost a match for the 4-wheel drive yesterday. The bus was cruising along at a good clip, on a road that wound around the moutains, following the lake we had steamboated through last night. Looking out the bus window, not seeing the road - only a steep dropoff was a bit exciting. Every now and then there was a short railing alongside the road, but in my opinion, they weren't in the places where they were really needed!

[Here's a view out the window looking down the cliff to the water]

[It's hard to tell, but this is the road with a tiny shoulder and tuft of grass, then tops of trees and way down there is the beach. This is photo was on the way back so we weren't driving right next to the cliff.]

The road had just been 'sealed' (paved) a couple years ago. Before then, it was a major trek from Queenstown to the Dart River. It's about an hour and a half from Queenstown to the Dart River where we went.

We arrived and got into our wet gear [Jan, Peter, Steve, Loretta ready to get on the boat. Notice the shorts! Dave Hurko is in the background video taping.] and couldn't help but notice that it hadn't warmed up! I was starting to get a little worried.

We board the jetboats [photo of jetboat (standing still)] and head upriver. Going upriver against the current we travel about 30 mph, and it's coooolllllddd in them shorts! We travelled miles and miles upriver - I estimate we went about 40 miles upriver and it was a great adventure! We were really in the wilderness. The river is fed by glaciers, but we didn't go all the way to the glaciers <g>. The group was boarded on 3 different boats and every now and then we passed or were passed by one of the others. [passing one of the others going upstream]

On the way up, we stopped at a little alcove which was really cool. None of our pictures show a fraction of the coolness of it, but here's a picture of us looking out at the river from inside the alcove. It was created by an earthquake and the water there is 70 feet deep. While inside, there were crevices and rocks and the boat had to wiggle it's way in because the entrance was just barely big enough.

[Randy, Jan and Steve in the boat. I'm holding the camera way outside the boat aiming in (even though the driver said to keep our hands inside - it was a quick shot (same shot as above)]

[I turned around and took this shot of Peter Regan]

Jan was smarter than the rest of us and had dressed warmly. She saw how cold I was and being the nice person she is, she insisted we change places. Finally, I gave in and I sat in the middle. It was much warmer there! But I think Steve was getting most of the cold wind on his side. He was a trooper though. Jan has the camera now and took this shot of me and Steve.

We got to one point in the river and we turned around. The driver said we were now going to be going fast (I thought we were going pretty fast on the way up) and he showed us a hand signal. He said when he puts his fist up in the air, we were all to hold on tight! When he held his fist up, we held on, and he would then, going full speed, throw the boat in a 360 degree spin. Peter, behind us, got the brunt of the huge amounts of water which flowed in when he did this. We were soaked but having a blast! We were going 50+mph going downstream and the ride back took a lot less time. He would head right towards rocks or trees and at the last minute, swish out of the way and we would go around it - barely. I never could get a picture of this (I was holding on when *we* did it, and I never caught a picture of one of the other boats doing it.

We saw great wilderness scenery both ways. [tall waterfall] -  [typical view] - [typical view 2]

When we returned, we headed to the Glenrouchy Hotel to eat. This was probably the best tasting meal of the trip for me. They brought out hot rocks (slabs of granite) to each of us which they had heated to 400 degrees celcius (that's 752 degrees Farenheit) with lamb, chicken and beef cooking as we ate it. There were great vegatables and fixings that I added to the rock and it was delicious. There was a fireplace there which was the center of attention most of the time with people standing around it warming up and drying off. [Here's a dark picture of me and others standing by the fireplace (with people in front sitting at their tables)]

We returned to the resort, and the Summit Group members had a long chat with President Mark Jacobs. That evening we had a casual barbeque dinner at the Resort Restaurant which as very good. There was a live guitarist who was really great and I meant to buy one of her CD's, but I had a bit to drink and forgot. Jan wanted to hang around, but I went back to our room and the Summit Group members sat around and chatted for a long time (minus Jan). It got pretty late and Jan still hadn't gotten back so I headed back down to the restaurant and found her, Dawn Thompson, and Lynn Zielke giggling away like teenagers on the resaurant patio. Pat Satola was just leaving and he was giggling in his own way - I wasn't sure he was going to find his way back to his room. But I was pretty sure the 3 girls weren't going to find their way back, so I stayed a while and we soon got a driver to drive us back to our room in a golf cart. I apprently didn't take my camera to this dinner because there isn't one picture of it.

And that ended our second day in Queenstown.

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