Queenstown

Rosalie told me way back at Christmastime that everybody from Gore goes to Queenstown for Christmas. I didn't really get it then, but now I see that the climate in Queenstown is warm and dry, and people go there for a summer break from rainy weather. When Ruben and I talked with shopkeepers in Queenstown this past weekend and mentioned we were living in Gore, nobody seemed surprised. It is indeed a second home for Gore's affluent population, which is large.

Queenstown is on the banks of Lake Wakitipu and lives up to its reputation for stunning scenery. It calls itself The Adventure Capital of the World and will gladly accommodate tourists who wish to risk life and limb for a fee. We saw venues for jet boating, bungy jumping, canyoning, 4WD adventures, air adventures, and anything else you can imagine. Walking by the lake and hitting some souvenir shops (I finally found an NZ visor!) was all we had in mind for our first evening in Queenstown. Ruben was tempted by the first Mexican restaurant we've seen since Auckland. If tacos al carbon had appeared on the menu, we would have stopped. But I don't like Mexican food and R wasn't in the mood for fajitas, so we chose a lakeside bistro where the hostess was trying to avoid an argument with a tourist who wanted to leave the restaurant with an open bottle of wine (this is against the law). We were relieved that the tourist wasn't American (must have been Australian) and felt bad for the hostess, so we stuck around so we could be extra nice to her. There's no tipping in NZ, so we hoped our niceness would make up for that other guy's jerkiness.