From Franz Josef we had a long driving day to Makorora. We passed fox glacier and Lake Matheson on the morning but the cloud was so low and rain so hard that we could barely see out the bus windows. The afternoon brightened up as we visited Thunder Creek falls and walked over a couple of swing bridges. We are now in the amazing scenery in the southern Alps and Makorora was a great place in the middle of nowhere to stop over night.
We had another day's drive before Queenstown. We passed Lakes Wanaka and Hawea which were pretty massive. The good weather held out for a couple of hours so that I could do a sky dive over the lakes. 12,000 feet, 45 seconds free fall (mostly through cloud) at 200km/hr was amazing and not at all scary! The afternoon was very wet but we stopped at the famous AJ Hackett bungy at Kawarau bridge which was the first commercially jumped bungy in the world so some of the bus threw themselves off the bridge.
Queenstown is a bit of a party and adventure sport town but it's small and in very scenic setting on the shore of Lake Wakatipu. As I haven't won the lottery I'm taking advantage of the free things to do in the area so I've spent 2 days walking, seeing some amazing views. The jagged mountain range 'The Remarkables' overlooks the town so I set about to walk a sector of the lake to the nearby town of Frankton which has a primary school, the airport and nothing else to its name but some fantastic mountain and lake views. Another walk saw me scale Queenstown Hill which was very steep but had great views at the top. I'm hoping the good weather will continue as next we head to Milford Sound.
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