Fish Out of Water

Musings and observations about life from an East Coast native now living on the Left Coast in the California State Capitol since 2004. This fish has made her home in Madison, WI (7 years); Portland, OR (2 years); Las Vegas, NV (7 months); Middlebury, VT (3 summers); Marne-la-Vallee, a small town east of Paris, France (6 months); Middletown, CT (3 years); and Marshfield, MA, the fish's coastal hometown 40 miles south of Boston (17 years).

Name:
Location: Sacramento, California, United States

1.12.2019

Southern Traverse Tour Day 4: Queenstown

Thursday 1/10: Zip Line + Farm Tour
I got up for a run along Frankton Road, which provided some great views of Lake Wakatipu but was also quite busy with traffic. We had ordered breakfast through room service (no delivery charge at this hotel!) and enjoyed our meal (salmon eggs benedict for me, full cooked brekkie for Mr. E) looking at at our lake view.

We left the hotel just past 9am to walk to the Skyline Gondola for our ride up the hill, getting some amazing panoramas of the lake and noticing some mountain goats foraging under the trees.




We looked around a bit for more views and were bemused to find a Jelly Belly store up at the Gondola base. Even more impressive were the various Jelly Belly artworks, including this portrait of Frodo from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy:

Our EcoTrek "Kea" zipline tour was scheduled for 10:20am, so we checked in, met our guides Leah and Esther, and suited up with the rest of our group of 11 people. We were joined by a family of five from California, a couple from Australia, a young woman from Iowa, and a solo woman from Sydney who's originally also from California. We had a fun adventure on the six ziplines, including some challenges such as going upside down or falling backwards onto a line with eyes closed. The final line is the steepest in the world!

Once we finished up and shed our harnesses, we met our taxi transfer to take us down to the harbour, where we checked in for our afternoon cruise on the TSS Earnslaw steam boat, which took us across the lake to Walter Peak Farm Station.



At the farm, we watched an impressive sheep shearing demonstration by Aled and then sheep herding by dog Kip. Aled followed up with a brief tour of the other farm animals before we ended with afternoon tea.







Another beautiful day to enjoy the scenery! Our return boat ride got us back to the city around 5:30pm, and we did some browsing and shopping on our way back to the hotel to freshen up a bit. Then down the hill again to find dinner. We discovered the yummy Big Fig, which had some great fresh prepared salads and proteins that we both enjoyed. As we headed back to the hotel, we then found The Winery tasting room, which uses the card + dispenser system for patrons to taste up to 80 different wines. We managed not to do too much damage... Then back up the hill again to finish the evening and get ready for our morning departure.

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