Queenstown – Next Day

It’s Gondola Day. Well, for me at least.

Our local tour operator was working overtime to get us into the sky. With yesterday’s weather-cancellation of the helicopter rides, I expected it to be a wash due to such short notice. But they found a fixed-wing plane that could guarantee window seats for everyone. The problem: they only had 12 seats, and we had 13 folks. So, I volunteered to swap days – everyone else flies today and get to fly tomorrow. Thus: gondola day for me!

There was a nice lookout spot between the hotel and the Skyline facility. Here’s another view of the lake area from a higher viewpoint. Lake Wakatipu is a very pretty part of the world.

Skyline is a company that specializes in hillside adventure tourism (they have sites all over the world). They’ve been in the Queenstown area since the 1960s and are constantly updating their equipment. They are almost finished with the latest round of improvements, and I am impressed with the engineering and planning of how you can rebuild things while keeping them open. They even had a display of the older gondolas that take folks uphill – think enclosed sky lifts.

They now have 10-person gondolas, with a twist. One of the most popular activities here is mountain biking, with the joy of not having to bike uphill. You can carry four bikes and their riders on the specially-designed versions. Yes, two of the bikes are hanging outside on the doors.

Here’s basically the same lake view, but from much higher and farther back. PS: that brown hill on the mid-left? That’s where they filmed Aragorn falling over the cliff while fighting the Wargs scene in the second LotR movie.

They had an excellent buffet available. Sitting at the window we had a bit of a shock. Seems paragliding starts from just left of the building.

You know things are strange when paragliding makes more sense than the other choice: the luge. Imagine “driving” a sit-down skateboard on a concrete track. They do give you a steering wheel and brakes tho…

That evening some of us crossed the lake for the farm show. Due to our rescheduling we needed to shift to the late show, thus not getting back to the hotel before 11:30pm. Many decided to pass. They missed riding on the TSS Earnslaw, the only passenger-carrying coal-fired steamship in the Southern Hemisphere. (Where do they get the coal?)

The Earnslaw has been plying the waves for over 100 years (with many updates). They are very fond of the steam engines, leaving an open view from the passenger decks. But it made the inside of the ship VERY HOT! At least we could open the windows.

I was surprised by Walter Peak High Country Farm. I thought there would be at least a village (like Glenorchy yesterday), but no. The “farm” is essentially a theme park (the proper farm is over the hills away from the lake). We started at the buffet building, which held about 200 guests. The barbecue master was kept busy for over an hour.

Afterwards we moved to the show. I expected bleachers next to the kennel, but they had a proper open-air covered auditorium and stage.

The sun set during our meal, so the lit stage combined with the darkness beyond played havoc with my camera’s white balance (Yeah. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it). First our presenter sheared a sheep for us while dropping information on us:

Merino sheep wool is sold for about $25 (NZD) per kilogram, which is the amount of an average adult sheep
The record for shearing sheep with manual sheers is 320 sheep in a single day
With electric sheers the sheep can be sheared in as little at 37 seconds
When you drop a sheep on their backside they stop moving, like a kitten when Mom cat bites their neck

The short-haired border collie waited for the shearing to complete but was ready to go.

The backdrop then opened to expose the stockade and steep hill behind the stage. They were not lit as well as the stage (more excuses), but the dog took off and “escorted” the small herd of sheep into the stockade. Our presenter described how border collies do not bark to move the sheep but acts like a predator to move them where commanded. She spoke commands rather than using a whistle. This particular farm had nine dogs, with each able to herd 200 sheep at a time.