The Skyline Gondola is a gentle, four-minute ride to the top of Bob's Peak - a hill that rises immediately behind Queenstown. The views include aspects of Lake Wakatipu that we have become familiar with.

Closer at hand, there are also good views of people participating in a number of energetic pursuits. These include bungy jumping; swinging from a ledge; paragliding over the nearby conifer-clad slopes; and driving buggies down a twisting concrete track called The Luge. We take the gentle gondola ride to the town and walk round Queenstown Gardens where we meet an extinct Moa.

 

A simply decorated Italian restaurant called Pasta Pasta Cucina provides us with a seafood pizza and green salad with glasses of a very pleasant Pinot Gris. Unfortunately, there are no desserts, so the staff (who are English!) suggest the Lone Star Cafe and Bar, which is a few doors up the street. It is full downstairs here, so we go to the noisy, upstairs bar section known as The Rattlesnake Room. This trendy bar, with items such as motor bikes and revolvers suspended from the ceiling, serve us enormous helpings of apple pie. After some retail therapy, we go back to the condominium.

 

 

This morning we have booked for a Four-Wheel-Drive excursion into Skippers Canyon. This canyon contains the churning Shotover River which is inextricably linked with many of Queentown's famous adventure activities such as bungy jumping, rafting, and jetboating. We will be doing none of these, but our drive with Nomad Safaris will take us along Skippers Road - an extremely narrow and winding, unsurfaced road that Chinese navvies spent over twenty years hacking out with pick and shovel in order to access a goldfield after gold was discovered on the banks of the river in 1862. We are picked up from the condominium in one of Solihull's finest (a Land Rover Defender), then collect a couple from Luton, before heading off to the north of Queenstown

At the end of the road there are a few ruined buildings, a fascinating old cemetery that includes a stone to a Chinaman with a number of coins at its base, and the old schoolhouse. After a stop for coffee and biscuits, we commence the return journey that includes a break to pan (unsuccessfully)  for gold

Skippers Road soon begins to shadow the river, negotiating Pinchers Bluff where navvies cut the road from a near-vertical cliff face. We then cross the narrow Skippers Canyon Bridge, the highest suspension bridge in New Zealand at 91-metres above the river. Only one vehicle at a time is allowed on this historic bridge

The road surface is rough and we are often close to precipitate drops to the river a long way below us. On the way we see various activities in the river and we also pass the Pipeline Bungy (left) - a 102-metre jump from a reconstructed 1864 sluice water pipeline

(left) the Land Rover emerges from Hell's Gate

There are a number of vineyards in the Queenstown area, and we find that the one we visit in the afternoon, Gibbston Valley, does a very nice lunch that is completed by two very large, very rich, chocolate cheesecakes that are served in a cup with fruit and a chocolate wafer. After a glass of their excellent Pinot Gris we visit the Cheesery and then take the tour of the wine cave