Day 70 - Skyline Gondola and Luge

Chaggie woke up to the most wonderful view this morning, as 'The Remarkables' dominated the skyline over Lake Wakatipu. The sun was shining and it was going to be a fantastic day weather wise!
Maryann had organised that Chaggie could get on the Gondola up to the Skyline centre for free, including 5 free rides each for Chaggie on the Luge that they have up there!

After having breakfast, Chaggie set off to Skyline at around 11.30. We took a nice drive through Queenstown to see what it was like, Staggie couldn't remember as it has been 10 years since he was last here! Queenstown isn't known for its size, not at all but the surrounding areas is where it gets it's name put on the map and is one of the top tourist destinations in New Zealand in the summer and in the winter due to the ski fields on the mountains surrounding it.

We got to the Skyline at around midday, collected our free tickets and headed up the gondola to the top to the Skyline centre, which offers a luge ride and restaurant amongst other things but Chaggie were here for the luge.. which looked epic. Staggie can remember going down the luge a decade ago with his Dad and can remember getting cramp in his arms due to the strain the luge carts put on his arms.. lets hope that doesn't happen this time hey!

We got our helmets and got on the chairlift to the top of the luge. We had to do the sceinic route due to it being our first ride, which is compulsory for anyone of any level of ability and it wasn't that amazing, with families holding you up, so we thought, screw this, we are going to bomb it down the advanced slope.. bring it on! It was pretty rapid in all fairness but a huge amount of fun. On the last ride of our 5, we decided to hardly use our breaks, Staggie decided not to at all on the first bend, which is rather quick and very tight and ended up going on two wheels but luckerly managed to recover, he claims it was expert driving.

After our last ride, we bought ourselves two photos of our exploits before heading to the luge resturant for lunch. We then headed back to the bottom, where they had a Kiwi enclosure offering a $10 discount and guarenteeing us a look at some Kiwi's.. so we thought, lets do it! And, like they said, we saw some Kiwi's, four to be precise. Sadly Chaggie couldn't get photo's as it was too dark as they are nocturnal animals but Chino did manage to get some video footage! They really are fascinating creatures. There were also other types of birds and animals in the sanctuary, we have visited quite a few sanctuaries but this one had different species to what we've already seen. We then got to see a show at 15.00 which included skillful birds, which was pretty good to see.

We headed back to Dave and Maryann's in the evening and had the biggest burgers we have ever had, they were sensational! It was a fairly chilled out evening before we all decided to head to bed at around 23.00.
We are off to our Backpackers tomorrow, which we are both looking forward too but at the same time sad to leave Dave and Maryann who have been wonderful!

Chaggie x