NZ Day 16 - Goodbye South Island
Tuesday, 18 April 2017
Determined to go out with a bang, we had a few fun things lined up for today. Firstly was the last of the repacking (sigh), then a quick easter egg hunt in our motel room. I must mention that both places we stayed in Queenstown were quite expensive, and pretty underwhelming - it was very hard to find much that was reasonably priced particularly as we’ve only stayed 1 night each time. The very small cabin in the caravan park with bunk beds and a double bed in the tiny lounge room was $215, the ‘apartment’ we stayed at for our last night was $164 - but it was really just a slightly battered hotel room with a mini fridge. Anyway - with the easter egg hunt done we headed off to the Gondola, then onto the luge. 
A quick hot chocolate in the cafe at the top and we were on our way back down the hill and out of town for the much anticipated (or least-anticipated in Zali’s case) Shot-over Jet Boat. It was such a sunny day that it was fun watching the boats zoom up and down the river and enjoying the autumn colours on the trees of the hills nearby until it was our turn in the boats.  
We weren’t allowed to have cameras for this but we re-created the ride quite nicely here.. 
It was really fun - we zoomed through narrow canyons surrounded by autumn trees as well as through the wider parts of the river where the water was only 10cm deep. The spins and turns of the boat were like spinning around on a comfy-couch, such is the cushioning effect of the water. You did get sprayed in the face a few times by the wash but it was part of the fun. The drivers go deliberately close to the rocks for maximum exhilaration (which was the bit that Zali didn’t like), but I chose to trust the driver completely and not think about all the times that NZ adventure activites have gone wrong :).
Out of the boat we had time to eat lunch and throw the frisbee in a park before we headed to Queenstown Airport.
After an uneventful flight we picked up our hire car and drove straight to Peter and Jane’s place in Kelvin Road. Almost. We did drive to Kelvin Road, but I’d selected the wrong suburb, so we drove a lot further south than we needed to. I only realised as we were turning into the fake kelvin road (which was lucky for one of the residents there, as they were saved the inconvenience of having 4 Australians turn up on their doorstep and demand dinner and beds). The correct Kelvin Road was 30 minutes north - including going past the airport again. Uff. Luckily our extended family had decided to wait it out so everyone (bar Peter and Abi) were there when we arrived and we had a great dinner and comfy beds. It was good to see everyone again.
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