Day 69 - Destination: QUEENSTOWN! (Sunday 16th Januray)

Today was the day we headed off to (in Staggie's opinion) the best looking town in New Zealand, if not the world. Expectations were high then for Chino, Staggie had no worries.

We rose at around 10:00 at Helen and Matt's after another late night, we were planning to go to the Cadbury factory in Dunedin at 12:00 before heading off to Queenstown, however, firstly we found out we had to book our tour in advance and then we found they don't do the full tour on Sunday's! Typical, as soon as the American's take over, things get difficult! Shame.

So instead of stuffing our face's with delicious chocolate, we hung around Helen and Matt's, watching the cricket and ensuring we were fully packed before heading to Queenstown. We finally departed just after 3, filled up Brian with petrol and set off on our 3 hour 40 minute journey through Hobbit country.
The journey took us through some fantastic scenery and we could see why Lord of the Rings was filmed here, it was just like driving to Mordor, not Queenstown.. I know where I'd rather be driving to!

We arrived at Staggie's Dad's old friends (Dave and Maryann) to the most amazing view you could wish for. Their house looks over Lake Wakatipu and the mountain range called the Remarkables (they certainly are). Chaggie would be here for two days before heading to Base Backpackers in the centre of Queenstown. Dave and Maryann's house really is wonderful and is situated about 6km (3ish miles) out of the town, this has to be the most picturesque place we are staying at and likely to stay at during our whole trip.
Dave and Maryann cooked us a BBQ in the evening, as we ate we looked out towards the magnificent Remarkables. Sensational!

Staggie was adimant he was going to stay up to watch the Tyne-Wear derby between Sunderland and Newcastle at about 1am our time, so he stayed up for it, of course! Staggie has been writing his own blog whilst being here for anyone who doesn't know, writing about sporting incidents which he can use as a portfolio when potentially going into sports writing, the address is: http://www.staggietalkssport.blogspot.com/ - take a look!

Things were going superbly for Staggie and Newcastle as they were 1-0 going into stoppage time in Sunderland, but, devistatingly, Sunderland grabbed the jammiest of equalizers and shared the points in the 94th minute of the game! Staggie didn't sleep too well.

Tomorrow we plan to go on the Skyline Gondola and Luge centre which looks over Queenstown and is the company which Maryann works for. She is going to sort us out free tickets as well! Lovely Jubbly, it should be a good day out!

Chaggie x