Friday Funday!

When we woke up on Friday morning, it was raining again, but not very hard.  Soon, however, we heard a bunch of kids screaming "it's snowing, it's snowing!"  And so it was!  But not in Queenstown itself - just on the mountains around the town.  They were all covered in a lovely white layer of icing sugar.  I mean, snow.  But it looked just like icing sugar.  Or maybe I was just hungry. :)

Speaking of hungry, Billy and I spent a while catching up on emails, blogs etc. before heading down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast.  The restaurant in our hotel is apparently quite a famous one, with a fancy chef etc.  We had tried to go there for dinner on our first night, but they were booked solid, so we went into QT instead and had our delicious dinner at the Fishbone.  We contemplated trying to go there for dinner one night, but the menu looked a bit too fancy for us in the end.   Anyway, here are our bikes in the kitchen of our apartment - no wonder we had to go out for breakfast! :)

After breakfast (sorry, no pics - we never seem to manage photos that early in the day!), we stopped by the concierge desk so we could book kayaking and horse-riding for the next day.  Unfortunately, the concierge said they were sold out, but said we could go kayaking that afternoon, out in Glenorchy (LOTR country!).  The water looked rough, but I had really wanted to go on a kayaking trip and I wanted to see the Glenorchy area, so we booked it.  It was all a bit quick and we didn't have time to fully think everything through - I don't like making decisions in a rush!  I was actually a bit upset as now we would need to keep the bikes an extra day in order to fit in our bike ride etc.  I was worried we had made the wrong decisions and this was all going to be a disaster!  However, as usual for us, our story has a happy ending!

We walked to town and went to the meeting place the concierge had told us to go to, outside of a hotel on the other side of town.  We had asked to be booked with a company called Rippled Earth, but as 1pm came and went, we decided to check our booking confirmation.  Sure enough, we were booked with a different company - Kayak Adventures Queenstown.  And they didn't leave from Glenorchy, they left from right there in Queenstown.  The guide, Glenn, was amazing and offered to transfer our bookings over to Rippled Earth so that we could still get out to Glenorchy, however, the winds had picked up even more in Glenorchy and they had cancelled their afternoon tour.  Even where we were, in Queenstown, the waters were rough and it looked like the kayaking would be a bit of a battle with the weather!  Again, Glenn was amazing, and he offered to delay our trip till the following day.  The trips weren't sold out, and he didn't know why the concierge told us they were.    We will never know!!  Gratefully, we told Glenn that we would definitely prefer to go kayaking in the morning, and that we would go for a bike ride that afternoon instead.  Well, as it turns out, Glenn was planning to go for a bike ride that afternoon too and he offered to let us join him.  Sweet!

Billy and I took a taxi back to the hotel to get our bikes and change again.  I stopped by to let the concierge know about the mix-up with the tour companies, but I think I just confused him more.  In the meantime, I had him book me on a horse riding trip the following day, as I thought Billy was going to end up biking with Glenn again and didn't want to be disappointed with another "sold out" event.  

When we first got on our bikes, I remember thinking that my butt was a little sore from our ride the day before.  But when we met up with Glenn, he suggested a two hour ride, which sounded like the perfect distance, and very do-able.  Little did we know!!! 

As it turns out, Glenn races bikes.  Very fast.  Which means he is very fast.  And this is his territory, so he knows it well and rides it almost daily.  I was beyond screwed before we even began!!  We did this massive loop, all around the Wakatipu basin and out to Arrowntown etc.  It ended up taking about five hours (with a 45 minute tea break in the middle!)  So much for two hours.  I spent most of the first 2/3rds of the ride thinking that if I could just hang on until Arrowtown, I could take a bus home.  But of course, when we got there, and I suggested it, the guys wouldn't hear of it and insisted they didn't mind going slowly for me.  And oh, was it worth it!  The scenery was amazing, the riding was tough, but not impossible, and the feeling of accomplishment at the end was phenomenal.  We got to see so much that we would never have seen on our own and although Glenn was usually a few hundred yards in front of me, (okay, maybe a mile or two at times!) he was a great companion and told us some great stories about the area.  We were so incredibly lucky and I am still thankful that it all turned out so well in the end!!

 The scenery was spectacular.  For parts of the ride we were parallel to the Shotover River.  Unfortunately, the reverse of that old idiom proved true - what goes down, must also go up!  At least when you are biking in the mountains...

Do I look happy here?  I don't think I was...

Billy, on the other hand, looks very happy.  As I toil along in the background trying to catch up!

Did I mention the scenery?

Another hill???!!  It might not look like much, but that uphill went on for a ways...

Yes, we climbed up and over those hills, thank you very much!

There's still gold in this river!!

The Southern Discovery Bridge - a suspension bridge - yikes!

Glenn and Billy hang out waiting for me.

This is just past the spot where gold was first discovered in Arrowtown

The fall colours are starting to show

My new friend

Recovering with food and hot drinks at the Millbrook Golf Resort

 Today I had decided not to eat too much as I was worried all the rich food was getting to my waistline.  (Plus those pictures in the MTB shorts from yesterday - ugh!).  Anyway, BAD IDEA.  Today was the day I needed fuel most of all.  So when we stopped at Millbrook, Billy and I shared a ham sandwich, an Afghan cookie and we each had a cinnamon roll.  All washed down with a pot of tea.  It certainly helped on the ride home - if nothing else, it gave me some extra speed on the downhills. :)

I know I posted this before, but it is just so beautiful...

My new pet - Henry the Hedgehog

Even our bikes were tired at the end...

All in all, it was a fantastic ride, despite being WAY above my skill level.  Or fitness level. Or something.  But I was incredibly lucky to have such patient riding companions who gave me good tips - Don't hunch over the handlebars!  Change gears when you go downhill so you are ready when it evens out.  Don't be scared of going fast on the downhills (I'm still working on that one!)

Billy and I made it back to our room and we both collapsed.  It was just after 7 o'clock and we had an 8.15pm dinner reservation.  The question is whether or not either of us would be able to move in time!