Queenstown

  Friday after class me, my flatmates, and a few other internationals headed up to Queenstown for the weekend. Ash has a friend who lives just outside of town so all 8 of us stayed in the one bedroom flat. It was a very tight fit. We covered the floor with mattresses  and slept in sleeping bags on the floor. There is not very much snow on the mountains so we didn't do any snow activities.

DAM!!! 

Sunset as we drove in.

View from Campbell's front yard.

 After dinner we went to the ice rink because it was disco night. We were the only ones there. We stayed until closing so the last song they played as a hint it was time to go was "Closing Time" by SemiSonic. It was fun to go skating again but it was much colder that in Naesby. This rink had penguins and seals for us to skate with instead of chairs. I think the chairs were more fun. We went to town and got ice cream. I tried a cheese with fruits of the forest ice cream and white chocolate with hazelnut ice cream. Both were really good and reminded me of ice cream from Salt & Straw back home. I have not found any fro-yo yet but there is a dairy down the street that sells ice cream for really cheep so I've been going there.

Ice skating with penguins.

They don't like Tensa's in NZ either.

Queenstown is in a little valley so on onside there is a gondola that brings people up to a building where they can go concrete luging, paragliding, or bungee jumping. It is also called the Spaceship because at night the building is the only thing lit up on the hill side. We went up and went luging. We all had little scooters that we sat in and drove down the track. This was a lot easier than ice luging but I did manage to have a few run-ins with the wall.

Getting ready to luge.

Luge.

Top of the Gondola.

 Me and 4 others decided to go hit a few golf balls at the driving range instead of going shopping in town. This is the first time I had ever been golfing and I was terrible. I need to go to the range more often. I did manage to get the ball to go in the air and about 75 meters down the range. For that I partially blame the club and the tee set up. Queenstown is such a small area that the end of the driving range was the run way for the airport. So as we golfed there were planes taking off.

The runway is at the end of the driving range. 

Pro golfer.

 Saturday night we went to the ice bar. They gave us jackets and gloves to wear because it is kept at -7 degrees C. They had sculptures and tables that were all ice. And the drinks were served in ice cups.

Ice bar.

  Before we headed back to Dunedin, we stopped in Arrowtown which used to be a mining town during the gold rush. Now the economy is based on the tourists that stop by on the way to Queenstown. They were able to preserve some of the Chinese houses that were lived in. There are also some cool foundations left.

Where a hut was when Arrowtown was a gold mining town.

  Some of Ash's friends were up in Queenstown for the weekend for a race called Peak 2 Peak. Queenstown is a valley so it is a race between the peaks on either side of the valley. The race consists of the person skiing, mountain biking, kayaking, running, and road biking between the two peaks. People are able to be on a team so they only have to do some of the legs of the race. The people who went to watch said that the skiing part was really tough because there was not very much snow.