Queenstown Safari

Early morning in the mountains by Lake Wakatipu

We had another early morning today. But since this is my parent's last full day in New Zealand, I didn't mind, and was in the mood for an adventure. We got picked up from our hotel a little before 8:00am and drove around Lake Wakatipu to the tiny town (population 250) of Glenorchy. There isn't much there except two hotels and the mouth of the Dart River. We quite enjoy our accommodations in Queenstown, so we were there for the later.

The Dart River

We started our Dart River Safari with a jetboat ride. The jetboat is a Kiwi invention, and it is essentially an overgrown version of the JetSkis I grew up riding on the lake back home, with a water pump instead of a propellor. This means that the jet boats are extremely maneuverable and completely functional in only 4 inches of water. This makes them ideal for playing in shallow "braided" glacial rivers like the Dart.

Jetboat

And play we did. Our driver, Christian, did all the things that would've gotten my lake privileges taken away when I was driving JetSkis on the lake growing up. 360 degree turns, high speeds, cruising inches from large rocks and the shoreline. It was great. I totally want this job.

Dart River Jetboating

After our jetboat ride, we walked through some of the native forest with Rod, who was very friendly and funny and told us all about the native trees (mostly beach) and animals (only the birds are native, all the pesky animals like stoats and possums were, in the government's vast wisdom, introduced either for fun or to eat whatever animal they introduced before that had subsequently had a population explosion). He even pointed out some of the best places in the area where Lord of the Rings scenes were filmed. Take a good look at this movie still from "Two Towers":

Saruman's Hangout

Now take a good look at the mountains behind me in this picture:

I'm in Middle Earth!

That's right, I'm standing in Isendard, lair of Saruman. Pretty neat, huh? I'm a huge LOTR nerd, so I thought so. This area also includes the mountains where "Vertical Limits" (about mountaineering on K2), bits of the "Wolverine" movie, and all the Coors commercials were filmed. So in just a few acres you have New Zealand, Middle Earth, Colorado, the Swiss Alps and Australia. Magic. We drove back to Glenorchy in a 4WD bus (never seen one of those before), and made our way back to Queenstown with Stewie, our hilarious Maori driver, who seemed to know all of the ancient legends of his people. After we made it back, it was time to organize our things for our departure tomorrow. In fact, as I type this, I'm still not quite packed up. I'm sad to leave Queenstown. I really love it here. But I am excited for the second half of by Down Under Adventure to begin.

Smilin on Safari