Welly and Queenstoon

And so the story continues of our adventures in July!

After the Ski spectacular we headed back to Welly with two more bodies that we had left with - no we didn't do a Fred and Rosemary West - Clare and Lorna were coming to visit. ;o)

I did the whole tour guide thing with Lorna and Clare and we also got to visit Katie's work where Clare and I took on the might of Clint (a mighty Australian tennis coach who has worked with some serious players) and the Oman.

Oh, I never mentioned Chuck and Mariska from our Ski trip did I? Chuck and Mariska are also super tennis coaches (Chuck is from the US and Mariska from South Africa) well, they were at the ski place too and they were a riot - here's one of our many photos from our evening meal. Chuck and Mariska are on the left.



Anyway, more about them later - where was I ?

Oh yes, Tennis at Katie's work. Well I must say that the Tennis world got a bit of a surprise that day from a young Scottish superstar and you can check out some of the action here http://mcavoyandginger.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-07-31T08%3A57%3A00%2B12%3A00&max-results=2

Watch in amazement as I make the game look really easy almost as if it is no effort at all then I play an amazing winner. Andy Murray, if you need any advice just give me a call. ;o)

Anyway, the other thing that happened whilst Norma (Clare) and Johnathan Creek (Lorna) were in town was dinner with Chuck and Mariska. Unfortunately I couldn't make it but they went Mexican and Chuck decide they should all really go Mexican... Clare won the prize for the most Authentic Mexican costume after a fashion parade in the restaurant. Well done Clare.

So and then onto Queenstown - Clare, Katie and I took off for some fun down on the South Island. And it was amazing.

Here is the view of the Southern Alps from the plane (I took about a zillion shots for some reason - you've got to love digital photography)



Queenstown was a pretty special place and you can see all of our photos at http://www.flickr.com/katieandsteph88 as usual but here are a few quick snaps

1) We visited a wildlife park and nearly left with a few of the residents:




2) We ate at the legendary Fergburger (well we bought one and ate it down at the harbour)



3) We did a walk up to some of the Lord of the Rings locations (this is apparently the place (or near the place) where Aragorn fell over a cliff.



We also went out to a nightclub/bar where we started to all feel a bit old - we were tired, it was too loud and we were older by about 5 years than anyone else there. We did hang around though as we were entered into the competition for a $500 bar bill. The night could have been so different had we won but alas the Scottish D.J. didn't pick our winning ticket.

Probably for the best.

An interesting point to note about Queenstown to note for any single women out there (or gay men) - apparently in winter there is something ridiculous like an 80% higher amount of dudes than chicks.

Ok, I will leave it there for now but I still have to update you on Doubtful Sound, A big Icy Crevice and Christchurch so there is still some catching up to do.

I will leave you with a photo from the very beautiful Glenorchy which was a wee day trip away from Queenstown



Hope you are all well - missing all you lots.

SB