We had a wonderful trip across Lake Wakatipu to Walter Peak on an old steamship, the TSS Earnslaw. Launched in 1912, the Earnslaw is a coal-fired twin-screw steamer 168 feet long.
You can go down into the bowels of the ship to see the boilers being stoked and watch the pistons pumping away at the crankshafts – great stuff! The scenery is, as expected in Queenstown, spectacular. Here’s a tiny video.
After the round trip we walked through the local park – Queenstown Gardens – to the Queenstown Ice Arena, an indoor skating rink.
Jan and Pam were both skaters in their younger days and were keen to relive their triumphs on the ice. They both did well with lots of graceful-ish swooping around the rink and just one tiny fall.
Steve and I watched admiringly for a while. Then we found an excellent table ice-hockey game and battled it out puck for puck while the girls swirled.
We had more great food in Queenstown at the Botswana Butchery restaurant.
The next day it was back home via Auckland, and back to reality. We’d become acclimatised to NZ cool climate (low teens) and it was a shock to get back to Sydney’s 30-degree plus days.
Great vid! Thank God they don’t make ships like that anymore. The Kiwi coast has a few similar vessels ship-wrecked….