A day of two halves - we only got onto our bikes at lunchtime and so we did a short afternoon of about 30 miles or 45 kms. In the morning we experienced the Queenstown gondola - a cable car to a point some 400 metres or more above the town. It is impressive and does give you, for $25, a spacious view over the town, lake and mountains. There the usual vertiginous quality to the ride - rockfaces lie below your bubble of metal, and coming back down is particularly good as the car leaves the station and heads out into the void of air and sunlight.In the afternoon we had the option to keep cycling in the evening and push on a bit, but a strong headwind kept our speed down to mostly below 10mph, and a nut sheared off on my pannier rack so it's a bit wobbly and lashed up with bungees, so we decided (given a positive forecast for tomorrow) to stop at Kingston where there are remnants of the old railway line in the form of a station, some steam locos and some elegant carriages looking, sadly, a little neglected. Well comparing them to, say, Keighley and Worth Valley Railway(perhaps a bit unfair given that this is a small village).Though Queenstown may make you doubt that the milk of human kindness still exists, with its overpriced big city ways, at Kingston I had a $10 returned to me after it blew away unnoticed in the strong breeze and then a Dane who had once cycled NZ (Auckland to Invercargill and back, including kayaking in the Abel Tasman National Park) donated a substantial amount of curry (fortunately full of veg) to us. They have a blog, http://shomann.blogspot.com, in Danish but even for non-Danish speakers it does have great pictures.Question for the day: altho' good for the economy (but then so is warfare and manufacturing poison gas), is it really a good idea to fly people half way round the world to spend their time partying and buying various rather mindless thrills? Is NZ just a bigger version of a theme park with rides? Bah humbug!!
A day of two halves - we only got onto our bikes at lunchtime and so we did a short afternoon of about 30 miles or 45 kms. In the morning we experienced the Queenstown gondola - a cable car to a point some 400 metres or more above the town. It is impressive and does give you, for $25, a spacious view over the town, lake and mountains. There the usual vertiginous quality to the ride - rockfaces lie below your bubble of metal, and coming back down is particularly good as the car leaves the station and heads out into the void of air and sunlight.In the afternoon we had the option to keep cycling in the evening and push on a bit, but a strong headwind kept our speed down to mostly below 10mph, and a nut sheared off on my pannier rack so it's a bit wobbly and lashed up with bungees, so we decided (given a positive forecast for tomorrow) to stop at Kingston where there are remnants of the old railway line in the form of a station, some steam locos and some elegant carriages looking, sadly, a little neglected. Well comparing them to, say, Keighley and Worth Valley Railway(perhaps a bit unfair given that this is a small village).Though Queenstown may make you doubt that the milk of human kindness still exists, with its overpriced big city ways, at Kingston I had a $10 returned to me after it blew away unnoticed in the strong breeze and then a Dane who had once cycled NZ (Auckland to Invercargill and back, including kayaking in the Abel Tasman National Park) donated a substantial amount of curry (fortunately full of veg) to us. They have a blog,