Saturday 4th Mar Queenstown ( 19-14 degrees)

As a large tour group were expected in the restaurant at 7am when it opened, we decided to go for a walk around a beautiful lake, Lake Matheson just a few minutes drive  from Fox Glacier. We enjoyed our walk around the lake to a lookout area. Here the reflections were just beautiful even though the low cloud cover prevented us from seeing the nearby mountains. We were probably a few hours too early before the cloud had burnt off. The water, however was perfect for reflections as it was very still with no wind at all. We returned to our motel and had a lovely breakfast and Rob went for another short walk to investigate the possibility of taking a helicopter flight over the glacier. Unfortunately he could only do one at 11.30am and that would have been a little too late, seeing we were driving to Queenstown. The drive to Queenstown was quite spectacular. Around every corner there was something new to see. We stopped Knights Beach, a gorgeous bay on the coast. Then onto Ship Creek. Yes I said SHIP Creek! How could we not stop here? Of course Pat and Rob decided to race up to the tower for a view but I needed to read why it was called Ship Creek……..Apparently in 1855, a ship called the Schomberg sunk off the coast of Melbourne, Australia. A large part of the hull of this ship was swept across the Tasman Sea by the “West Wind Drift” and into the tranquil creek, now named Ship Creek! We continued on enjoying the beautiful scenery of rivers, streams and mountains and waterfalls. We stopped at various places doing short walks to see different natural attractions. We went on a longer walk to see some beautiful spots at Blue Pools. We had to transverse 2 swinging bridges but it was worth the walk. Brave people were in swimming and others were skimming stones across the gorgeous pools. We continued on into the busy but beautiful town of Queenstown, our home for the next three nights. Walking from our accommodation into the main part of town, we enjoyed a delicious dinner at one of the very busy eateries along the wharf.

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