What a Day...

Well folks here I am again. It finally happened what I have been waiting for all trip and thank heavens it wasn't me...After a long night of snoring fit to wake the dead, I finally got up after midnight and found my earplugs, I offered a pair to Kearie who declined, I also wanted her to jab Ben so he would roll over, but she declined that too. So I snuggled back into bed and was just about off when she asked if she could have the second pair after all... grr 

At 5 am the day started out great. Early departure so we could get in a good full day at Queenstown. We dropped the car off just after 6am, Well Ben did, after dropping us at the airport, a brisk jog and he joined us to catch our flight (Kearie and I were too tired to jog). Most of the flight was uneventful, I slept for most of it... Then we hit the turbulence, it was like being on a roller coaster, I have had turbulence before, but it has never lifted me completely off the seat about 4 inches before. It was quite exciting, Kearie and I were laughing and joking with each other, in other parts of the plane, people where being sick poor things. It was quite an adventure, until they told us we couldn't land at all and would be rerouted to Christchurch, what a pain, it is a full 5 hours at least drive from Christchurch to Queenstown and we are going to lose a day... Bugger

We flew to Christchurch and by the time we landed it was about 10:30.  The airline had put on buses to get us back to Queenstown, but Ben did not want to get on a bus, he was determined to hire a car. Kearie and I did not really want to do that as we already had one booked in Queenstown.  Ben booked one for 3 days as he would be using it while in the south Island so Kearie and I just bummed a ride with him to Queenstown, it took 5 hours with a quick stop for lunch.  We did not arrive until about 5pm....

The south island is nowhere near as pretty as the North, it was very flat, very windy and very dry. We actually passed a lot of dust storms, I was really surprised

Very flat

Very Windy, very difficult driving conditions Video would not upload...

Very Dry, you can see the dust storms that surrounded us in the distance

We did stop at a lovely lake and had lunch, but the wind was unbelievable.  Blowing a gale, you can see another dust storm behind the lake.

Once we arrived at Queenstown we picked up our rent a car at the airport only about 7 hours late.,..  If you are booking hire cars in New Zealand remember to check out ACE rentals, they are by far the cheapest we found.

We then went to our respective hotels and Kearie and I love ours, We have wonderful views and the rooms are quite nice.  Ben is staying in the center of town as he is staying here until Friday, Kearie and I will leave tomorrow to drive across the island in our own time.

Ben joined us for dinner, the views from the balcony were amazing

How awesome is that?

The selfie lessons are not going that well

But They are getting better, although we did end up in hysterics..  this stuff is hard..

It has been an amazing day, we did get rerouted but we didn't die.  We did spend the day in the car, but we saw sites we wouldn't have seen.  And we ended up having a lovely meal in a wonderful setting, the south island is finally showing us her beauty.

Night for now

Lones