We enjoyed and appreciated our leisurely morning with our own breakfast provisions in our two-bedroom apartment with the million-dollar view.
At 10:40, Milton was picked up by Pete (”everyone calls me ‘Pops’) for a day of funyaking (basically an inflatable two-person canoe). Pops was indeed a character: a weathered, long-haired Australian in his early 50s (with a 4-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son), who’d spent many years driving a truck before getting into the adventure-guiding biz. We zipped into town and met up with Katherine and Andrew, a youngish Australian couple who then followed us in their car which they left in a secluded car-park just off the road so they wouldn’t have to pay for parking. The four of us then drove off to Glenorchy, 44km away. Just when you think you’ve seen all the beautiful scenes, here comes another to leave you speechless! We drove along the lakeside, with the large, barren Richardson Mountains across from us on our left; as we came around a turn, we saw, in the distance, in front of us and to our right several towering, majestic mountain ranges, light blue in the late morning sun, with many jagged peaks, some with snow dappled and streaked all around and some with thick white glaciers lining the bowls and sides. The sky was a deep blue with scattered small white clouds, all of which was reflected in the wide glassy blue lake.
We arrived in the tiny hamlet of Glenorchy where we changed into wetsuits, polar-fleece tops, and splash jackets, along with gloves, booties and wool caps, all for our jet boat ride up the Dart River. Jet boats are small, flat-bottomed boats with (quite) powerful inboard motors that are specially made for zipping very fast along shallow (sometimes only inches of water) rivers. We joined the other 6 people on board and zoomed off. The ride was a bit more than one hour (with a quick stop to pick up Pops who was waiting on the shore with all our supplies after leaving the van at our finishing point), and was quite an experience as we vroomed along speedily, just skimming atop the surface. The jet boats, with their speed and flat bottoms, can really fish-tail about, and though the drivers obviously have pin-point control (as part of the experience, they whip around and between large rocks with literally inches to spare) at times it felt like riding a motorcycle on ice.
We went up the river into an ever-narrowing canyon, with interesting rock formations and the forest closing in on us. We then turned around and went back, with the three funyakers getting dropped off after 15 minutes or so. On the way back, we twice built up more speed and did some 360s, which were sort of fun and doused the people in the back of the boat. Once the three of us were dropped off, we climbed into our two inflated canoes and paddled on down the river (though the current was such that it was mostly steering, not paddling).
After 45 minutes, we stopped for lunch which was some cold pizza slices, veggie sandwiches and hot vegetable soup. We had time to marvel at the tall (up to 10,000 feet) mountains, which went on endlessly and had thick green forest halfway up, and were dark gray granite and snow-speckled the rest of the way. While we were in the sun, it was wonderfully warming, but when it went disappeared we were glad we’d all kept on the many layers from earlier. We then dragged the funyaks over the rocks for a while to get to a channel, then we got in and paddled up to a magical place — several hundred meters of winding, narrow (10 feet wide) canyon with amazingly clear still water (in fact, we all commented on how looking down we saw what looked like reflections of large rocks, but were actually several feet of the rock visible way below the surface). The towering canyon walls were white striated limestone, that had been carved by the water over the centuries into angular but smooth shapes. We sat for a short while in the solitude, then paddled back out and rejoined the river for the hour ride back to the van, which was waiting patiently for us, all alone on a wide rocky shore. We packed everything up, then drove back to Glenorchy.
While Pops cleaned up and put everything away, we went across the street to the Glenorchy hotel for a beer. Amazingly, the end of the Knicks-Heat game was on Sky Sports, but as we all agreed I was the only one out of the 6 or so people there who had any idea what was happening on the screen. We then drove Andrew and Katherine back to their car and me to Nugget Point.
Meanwhile, Wendy had appreciated a down day, with a few hours for leisurely walking the town, chatting with all the shop owners and learning all about life in Queenstown. Then it was back to relax in the apartment.
After Milton’s very long, very hot shower, the two of us headed into town for dinner and a movie. We dined at Mandarin (”a cantonese restaurant with Hong Kong chefs”), which was not exactly up to the standards of our favorite NYC venue, but hit the spot for some different spices. It was all ok, with the dim sum dumplings, the pork bun, and the chicken w/cashews and broccoli being pretty good (though they forgot the cashews). We then walked a block to the one theater in town and saw “Primary Colors” which had just opened and which we very much enjoyed. The theater is old and charming — small - about 100 seats- with a two-row balcony (in which we sat in the first row), with stone walls and a sponge-painted colorful ceiling. We then walked back to the Explorer in the nighttime chill (low 40s) and came home, where we were happy to crawl under our electric blankets.