March 20 – Queenstown

March 20, 2016 – Flying to Queenstown
We left the hotel at 7:30am but returned 5 minutes later due to someone (not me) leaving their vest and passport behind. We still got to the airport with time to spare. Alan, our guide, said the cloud cover might be too low for our flight to take off. He had our North Island bus driver stay around until we got word that the flight would depart.
We left on time and flew to Christchurch on the South Island. There we got off our 68 seat prop plane, walked inside, waited 10 minutes, and then reboarded the same plane. It was a different flight number so we all had different seats. 1 hour later we arrived in Queenstown. Unfortunately our bus wasn’t there. Alan said he’d buy us all a liquid refreshment while we waited. A number of us ordered pints of beer. Before any drinks were delivered, the bus arrived. The bus waited while we finished our beers.
We drove to Arrowtown, a quaint small town, for lunch. Some of us found a French bistro where we had a nice lunch. We drove up to a view point looking down on Queenstown and the lake. Wow. We are surrounded by mountains. We took a short stroll through town and the lake front before going to the hotel.
Dinner tonight is in town which is about 1 1/2 miles from the hotel. It is down hill going. We are walking down but I’ll probably opt for a taxi coming back.
Tomorrow is a trip to Mitford Sound. It should be even more beautiful.