Great Day In and Above Queenstown

Woke up to a glorious view outside as the rain clouds had lifted. We thought, you beauty, we are good to go to Milford Sound.   Went for a walk up to Starbucks for morning tea and then wandered along the lakeside enjoying the sunshine and skimming stones.  Called the airline company for a weather update and were shocked to hear it was terrible at Milford Sound, so another sight seeing flight was cancelled. Another disappointment so we headed into the centre of town to an adventure company to find out what other options there were and the fella suggested we do a helicopter flight around the Wakatipu basin and then fly up over Coronet Peak to land on Mt Druitt on the snow. Sounded good to us so we booked it and then went for a drive towards Glenorchy to have the picnic lunch we had purchased earlier for our Milford Sound trip. We didn't quite make it as far as the town as we had to make sure we got back in time to be picked up and taken to the airport so we found a nice spot lakeside with views up the valley towards Glenorchy and the mountains around Paradise.

Back into Queenstown and put on our snow shoes etc and a taxi picked us up and took us out to the airport.  After the safety briefing and the humiliating weigh in (well it is into the third week of us being on holiday!!) we boarded and then we were off towards the mountains. It was awesome as the views of the countryside were magnificent. We then landed on top of Mt Druitt and got out and played in the snow. It was a bit icy but we found some soft and deep snow and had some fun in it. Larry being the big kid jumped into some soft snow and sunk. Jenny also wandered into the soft snow and sunk knee deep. Kate, being much lighter, could be like an elf and walk across the top without sinking in much at all!  The girls had a ball and thought it was great fun.

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The other interesting thing on the trip was the couple on the other helicopter from Queensland who had been married earlier today at Queenstown Courthouse and were taking the helicopter flight in their wedding outfits.  His was a rather natty dark blue suit with mint green shirt and snow boots and hers was a long flowing mint green ball dress with fur stole - I think she was supposed to look like Elsa from Frozen.  It just meant I was singing "Let it Go" in the my head for the rest of the day!  

After our exhilarating flight we had a scenic drive back to town via the happy couple's accommodation at the Hilton on the other side of the lake.  We headed back to our unit and got changed from our mountaineering outfits to our dinner outfits and headed up to the Stratosphere Restaurant via the Skyline gondola. Very impressive view as the sun set over the Remarkables and a great buffet dinner had by the four of us.   We had a window seat and could look across to Coronet Peak.  What I at first thought were headlights coming down from the skifields turned out to be for the night skiing that happens up there on Friday and Saturday nights!  

Waddled home and we are now sitting on the lounges digesting before rolling into bed.

The forecast for tomorrow is snow in Queenstown so that will be interesting.  Kate's happy because we'll let her sleep in as long as she wants!