I hope that everyone had a great Memorial Day, I took a vacation day and so I had a long weekend and it was great just being lazy and taking it easy.  My husband grilled on Sunday and then cooked a big Pork Shoulder on Memorial Day--you just gotta love a Man and his grill!   I hope that everyone put their Flag out and prayed for our military on this special holiday!  Well it’s Day 8 and our last full day to enjoy Queenstown. Today we had the option to take one of the 4 great sightseeing tours that you, as the client would be offered complimentary if you were taking this tour. Our choices: Safari of the Scenes Tour—based around several sites where the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy was filmed; Skipper’s Canyon, which is san exhilarating adventure by 4WD Land rover following the Shotover River Valley, offering a view of the cliffs and breathtaking river gorges (a miniature Grand Canyon); Wine Tour where you could visit several of the leading Queenstown vineyards and sample the different wines that are produced in Queenstown; or a Lakeshore Forest and Bird Walk—which is pretty self explanatory—where you will see some of New Zealand’s famous species of birds.   My choice for the tour….Skipper’s Canyon…(if my husband had been with me, we would have taken the Wine tour)! We started our tour with a light rain, just enough to make the road into Skipper’s Canyon—muddy and treacherous—the road is only about 7 feet wide and it is one lane only--- no two cars can pass except in the wider portions of the road, so when I say you literally hug the road or the mountain, that is exactly what I mean! One side of the road is a straight drop and the other side is the mountain, so guess which side we hugged as we motored thru the Canyon. We saw several spots (holes) where the road had washed out from previous rains, but we just hugged the mountains and got around the holes….scary but so, so beautiful. You just closed your eyes and prayed that the Driver was both competent and experienced! By the time that we had made it halfway thru the Canyon, the rain had stopped and a beautiful rainbow along with the sun had popped out, so it turned out to be a glorious drive. The Canyon was spectacular and the scenery alone was worth the tour. Our tour lasted about 3 hours and we had a great driver/guide…at the halfway point we stopped and had hot chocolate and cookies and had an opportunity to take some great pictures. When the tour as over and we arrived back at the hotel, we had the afternoon free to eat lunch, shop and have some Spa treatments….Can you guess what I did? 

For our last night in Queenstown, we took a ferry over to the Walter Peak High Country Farm for dinner and the Colonel’s Homestead Show. After dinner that evening, which was awesome---it was in a big beautiful old farmhouse with antiques and large dining rooms, we went outside to the barn and watched an old sheep Shearer do a great comedy routine as he SHEARED the sheep. He was quite the entertainer and sheared the wool off the sheep in 2 minutes! Later we watched as the sheep dog worked the sheep down from the hillside into the paddock. It was amazing to watch the dog round up the sheep in the dark. We had one last chance to shop and buy some special wool products before we boarded the ferry and went back to our hotel for the night. We had a late night meeting when we got back to the hotel, to get last minute instructions about our departure the next day. What we did not know is that our tour leaders were able to work a miracle and got us a reduced admission to the MINUS 5degrees—Ice Bar in Queenstown for a late night drink. If you have never been to one of the Ice Bars, (there are 2 or 3 in the U.S.) it is a very unique experience. The normal cover charge is $35 NZ and includes the admission and 1 alcoholic beverage. You are only allowed to stay 20 minutes due to the small size of the bar…and they provide you with a Heavy polar coat and gloves, since it is below zero temperature in the bar. Everything inside is ICE, the walls, the bar and even the glass that your drink comes in. It has all sorts of ice sculptures and colored lights…I had my picture taken on a horse…can you imagine! When you have 30 people it is very crowded, and because it is so cold, you keep moving around to try and stay warm. It’s a great photo op and because it is so unique it becomes a THE DESTINATION!    Don’t forget to checkout my New Zealand pictures on my Facebook page or Gulliver’s Travel Facebook page.   You will love New Zealand. Stay tuned for our last few hours in Queenstown and the special tour that we took before leaving for the airport on Day 9.