Riding in a Jetboat is fun. We spent the day yesterday charging up the Shotover river in a jetboat, wandering around Queenstown, riding the gondola to the peak of Queenstown, and getting ambushed by a horde of deranged goats.
The jetboats are excellent fun - they tear up the Shotover river at around 70 km/hour, driving straight towards the gorge walls and turning away at the last second. Very intense, and very good fun. Lots of great photos, to the point where V’s telling me to stop taking them …
We had the afternoon free, so on the way back to Queenstown from the river we asked the driver what she’d recommend doing. She said the best thing to see in Queenstown was Deer Park Heights, so that’s where we went. It’s a massive park where yaks, llamas, goats, deer, bison, pigs, and horses roam free. You buy your food, and you give it to them. Simple concept.
‘Course, they know this better than you do. Vanessa got out to feed the goats, and they knocked the tin out of her hands. Makes sense - that’s where the food was. She scrambled madly to get the food back, so they knocked it out of her hands again. Getting ambushed by around 20 goats is an interesting experience. Especially when they started to try to get into the car with us. They figured we must be holding out on them ….
Deer park is also where Peter Jackson filmed a number of shots for the second film. We visited Aragorn’s hill, saw where “Gimli fell off his horse in a humourous moment”, and saw where the Wargs carried Aragorn away. All told, an excellent day.
Today, we head to the glow-worm caves.