Queenstown - Day 3

After Courts banging on about how nice the sunrise was following her run the day before, she's drags Jeff out of bed so he can see for himself. It's probably a balmy 2 degrees and windy as hell but she's right, this time of day is magical. Water lapping against a backdrop of snow capped mountains, it's chef's kiss.

The girls have a wine tour booked in for the afternoon, so a big breakfast cook up is in order. Bacon, eggs and pancakes should set them in good stead.

The boys head out to play Frisbee golf, which seems to be a popular thing in NZ. $10 hires you a frizbee and gets you a scorecard/map and away you go.

The 18 hole course is setup around the other head of the little bay. It's a perfect spot. Pine trees everywhere and views across the bay.

After a sketchy kind of start, we seem to figure it out OK and it's fun just being out there. We don't quite get the full 18 holes in. It's a bit windy and cold and throwing a frizbee can only entertain a 3 year old for so long. Jeff wins the first round of drinks off Caleb. We take it easy for the afternoon waiting to see what state the girls are going to be in when we meet them in town later.

Meanwhile, the girls head into town to get picked up by the bus to take them to the wine region. The driver informs us that we can stop at any wineries we like and is very well informed about what's good here (pinot noir is the Otago region's claim to fame).

First stop is Gibston who were the first winery to open in the region. We grab a flight of wines and fall in love with sparking wine (naturally one of the more pricier ones). The French woman who is explaining all the wines to us reckons it's better than any champagne she's had in France!

After about an hour we're feeling fine, probably as a result of the beautiful warm and sunny day. We hop on the bus and head to our next stop, Mt Rosa. This winery has dogs and a fireplace, so the wines probably don't matter at this point. Most of the wines are pretty good, especially the pinot noir, as promised.

Feeling quite merry at this stage we head to our 3rd and final winery for the day, Rockburn. The wine region is only about 20 mins out of Queenstown and the wineries are only a few minutes drive apart from one another. This winery also has a tavern on the ground that serves wines, beers and food. We head to the winery and do the tasting. We sip the wines and the woman who is pouring us generous tastings offers some suggestions of things to do in Queenstown. We really like these wines so we buy a bottle. It's time to soak up the wine with some food so we hit up the tavern next door. Great wings and wedges. It's time to head back into town.

On our way back we bump into a guy we met earlier when we were in Wanaka. He's packing up ready to head home to Tassie. We stop for a chat and enquire about his travel companion (who he was with in Wanaka). He informs us that his buddy had actually broken his back from a fall they had while mountaineering in Wanaka so they've cut the trip short. We wish him well on his travels and cross mountaineering off the list of things we were never going to do anyway. We head for burritos then bed, we've got an early start and big drive ahead of us tomorrow.