On top of the world

We have had a great couple of days here in Queenstown so far. Yesterday we took it fairly easy and organised a 'Deer safari' through the Deer park and to see some LOTR locations. It was a very enjoyable trip, but as is often the case with these tourists jaunts, we found out we could have saved our $150 and driven ourselves to the Deer Park for $20 per car. *sigh* Oh well, then we wouldn't have had the commentary, or seen the movie scenes in the bus, and it was interesting to see the scene, then look out the window at where it was shot. Very weird to see a dilapidated Korean Fort on a NZ hillside though (or a Middle Earth hillside for that matter). Apparently it was used for a Disney movie, 'The Rescue' in the 90's.

We did see a great range of wildlife up close and personal - Pigs, Donkeys, Miniature Horses, Red Deer, Elk, Llama, Alpaca, Bison and Yak and it was a lot of fun photographing and feeding them, with some amazing scenery to boot....

Today we had a lovely sleep-in, then headed off to go white-water rafting on the Shotover River. It was an awesome trip, although at only a couple of hours on the water, it felt a lot shorter than the full day trips we have done in the past. Probably more manageable in the middle of a busy trip like ours, as it can be pretty exhausting.

After rafting, we had a pizza by the lake and watched a street performer, which was highly entertaining dinner theatre :) .