Hamner Springs to Queenstown

Our spa day was wonderful! We bathed in the smelly sulphur thermal pools, and 41 degree rock pools - just like a bath.. only surrounded by snow-capped mountains - very relaxing.

Stayed at a fab motel but had to leave early in the morning for the long drive across the whole of the South Island - from Hamner to Queenstown, via the Franz Josef glacier on the far north east coast.

What a drive! It's a cliche but true, that around almost every corner was a 'wow' moment as the landscape became more and more dramatic - mountains, snow, lakes, awesome coastlines - all amazing.. finally got to Queenstown after a 10 hour drive and lurched into our motel.

Exhausted, but then woke up this morning to the stunning village/ski resort - so so glad we've got 4 days here - surf/ski shops galore, gigantic lake, and again, snow-capped mountains surrounding the whole valley.

However, our scheduled sky dive this morning had to be postponed till Saturday at 8:30am as there was too much snow at the holding zone! But the forecast for Sat is even worse so fingers crossed - we are now in the hands of the weather fates...

So, to cheer ourselves up, we booked ourselves onto a tour of the fabulous sounding 'Doubtful Sounds' - apparently named by Captain Cook as he was indeed 'doubtful' that his ship would make it to land around that coastline - we'll just be happy to see a penguin...

That was this morning and the afternoon was spent playing up the top of one of the mountains here - got a gondola up to the top and drove a luge down! Fantastic fun!

6am start tomorrow - yay!