Morning on the boat was beautiful.  The clouds came in low covering the tops of the mountains, but it was quite peaceful.  The water was like glass.  At breakfast, they announced the sighting of penguins.  I LOVE penguins.  I looked and saw them, but all I saw was a black thing in the water way off in the distance.  You couldn’t tell that it was an animal, much less that it was a penguin with a yellow tuft of feathers over its eye.

Then off to Queenstown.  Queenstown is known as the Adventure capital of New Zealand.  They are famous for skydiving and bungee jumping.  We have three nights in Queenstown.  How great to stay in one place for three nights!  First they took us to Peter Pans Tours to book any activities we wanted to do.  This was the most disorganized tour company.  The lady helping us would ask a question and then completely ignore the answer.  They were obviously only interested in getting our money and getting us out of there as quickly as possible.  Six of us signed up for Canyoning and they couldn’t even tell us which company we were booked with, what day, or what time.  We would get an email later that would tell us.  Later that night, we still didn’t have the email and the shop was closed.  Our tour guide got a hold of the guy from the shop and he agreed to meet us at a local bar and bring us the information.  He was, of course, an hour late.  But we finally got the information.  We spent way too much time in a backpacker bar.  I am so not a backpacker.  We finally went to a bar with live music which I enjoyed much more, but a few in our group couldn’t wait to go back to the backpacker bar so they could have cheaper beer and Jagger bombs.  I stayed up long enough for midnight to celebrate the beginning of my birthday and then off to bed.

The canyoning tour was fun.  We put on thick wetsuits and harnesses and walked through a tight canyon.  We rappelled or slid down waterfalls along the way.  It was only for an hour or two, but just the perfect amount of time.  Four of us went out for a nice Italian dinner and drinks at a rum bar – no Jagger bombs in sight.  Then to another place with live music.  It was a wonderful adult evening.

The last day in Queenstown, I spent wandering around the town.  A few of us went to do the Luge which is similar to an Alpine Slide, but instead of a concrete luge track that only one cart can go down, it’s more like a go cart track.  We went to Ferg Burger which is supposed to be the best burger place in the world.  I don’t know how you get that reputation.  There was always a line out the door and down the block.  The line was shorter when we went and it didn’t take too long to get our burgers.  It was a normal burger with a huge bun and a lot of goop on it.  It was good, but I don’t get all the hype.  However, I don’t get all the hype about burgers anyway.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore