The family holiday is in New Zealand this year, instead of Niseko (Japan).  This is for a number of tedious reasons, and meant that it has been and uneven holiday with only about 3 days when all four Australian Coulsheds were together.  We have now moved on to a phase which is a “road trip” for Nick and David.  This ‘blog will largely cover that phase.  This is the first couple of days where all of us were together.

Day 1.

I (David) flew over from NSW to New Zealand on Jetstar.  Not the most comfortable airline, but simply to get from A to B, that’s fine.  Sue, Nick and Andrew had already been in Queenstown for a couple of days.  Queenstown is lovely – situated on a large lake, surrounded by the most beautiful scenery in the form of mountains.

The others had already done several things (including mountain biking!).

They had also been on a trip up and down the lake on a coal-fuelled, steam-powered boat – the TSS Earnslaw.

My first full day here we decided to climb Ben Lomond mountain.  This involved getting a gondola (!) up to the place where there is a “luge” (basically unpowered go-carts going down a steep winding track), and various other attractions.  We walked from there.  It was quite a tough and long climb, but the views from the top were superb.

We then returned to the luge.  Sue and David had three runs down, Nick and Andrew had five.  It was very good fun.

^{Note for John and Mark, coming here next year: we stayed in an Airbnb place, so not much help for you there.  Dinner was at a place called The Pier, which was OK, not special, but right on the wharf.  Note for John: there is a thriving craft-brewing scene.  Look out especially for Renaissance brewery and Altitude brewery, both easily available in supermarkets or “Bottle-O” shops.}

^.

Day 2

This was a pre-arranged lunch with David’s colleague Sonya (a New Zealand-born cardiologist).  We had a degustation lunch at Amisfield winery in Arrowtown, just out of Queenstown.  Highly recommended if you are ever in the area, and like fine food, fine wine, or both.  It took about three hours!

.We returned to the AirBnB which Nick had arranged.  It was a superb locations, see.  Queenstown is so beautiful.  I said “can we come here to live” and had the usual reply for Sue ….