Our last day had arrived and instead of grinding through another hike we decided to take it easy for the day. We started by taking in a local rugby game. The talent was not close to that we had been watching on TV but was still mildly entertaining.
We then took in some breakfast with a pair of breakfast burritos. In contrast to the tacos I had tried two days earlier this was very well executed and extremely filling.
We waddled out of the restaurant and took a walk down the waterfront.
Queenstown is a beautiful little town. Its reminds me a lot of the smaller ski towns in Colorado only with the advantage of being on the water. After exploring the city we set off to our car. To our shock the car parked directly behind us had been hit overnight and was in not great shape. The tiida almost saw its last days...
Dodging that bullet we set off for wine country. Unbeknownst to us, southern New Zealand is a blooming wine area and we were only 30 min away from a slew of wineries. We took a few tours and saw the whole process. It was a good time to go because they were in the middle heavy production.
We even got to tour New Zealand's largest wine cave
Having never been in a wine cave I had no idea if this was impressive or not but it looked neat.
I think I was most impressed by the cool temperature which is consistent all year round. I need to build my next place in an old wine cave.
As we drove to various wineries we were greeted by the nice scenery, just like everywhere in the Queenstown area.
There were even speed cameras on the small gravel cliff side roads. I don't think this was going to be an issue for us.
Since I was driving we had to call it quits before things got out of hand. We returned the tiida and made our way to the airport. The bar featured a solid view of the whole operation.
We boarded our flight and headed back to Auckland.
I again had to run to make it to my flight back to the states. The event was not quite as involved as my LAX adventure but my legs were sore from hiking and running was not kind to them. I did not have time to eat anything before we left but I did grab a snack in Queenstown before we left.
This was probably the most exotic thing I was able to find while overseas. Oh well, not everywhere can be adventurous as Asia or Africa. Having made my flight I plugged into the entertainment system, nerded out a bit, and then fell asleep for most of the flight.
Until next time
