13D12N South NZ - Queenstown

Day 11 - Queenstown

We saw a small glimpse of blue sky and hoped the wind would blow away the clouds far far away. We were walking to The Station then, to buy our bus tickets to Coronet Peak which was about 20 minutes ride away. We bought the sightseeing package which is inclusive of the chairlift ride to the peak. No skiing lesson for us as we don't see a need for it. Afterall, living in a summer year round country, when would we get a chance to practice that skill?





Our Coronet Peak pass and the bus.





The ride up to Coronet Peak was very scenic. Make sure you sit on the right side of the bus.





Reached the base of Coronet Peak.





We don't ski and we were there to take pictures only :-) It was our first time on a ski resort as well. Seeing the young and old skiing there made me so envious of them, especially the kids. I wished I could just put on the gears that very moment and start skiing like them .... I heard it was not easy Well as you can see from the pictures taken, the blue sky lost badly to the clouds.









After a while, we took the chairlift up to the peak to see what was up there. What can I say but beautiful sceneries. It would have been much better if the sky was clear.





Again, we were just observing and taking pictures.

All of a sudden the weather turned very foggy and everyone was gone except us. A staff came out from the control room to inform us that the chairlifts were experiencing some technical problems and we won't be able to get down till they fixed it. We were invited into the control room to take shelter as it was really cold outside.

After about 20 minutes or so, the weather cleared and the chairlifts were fixed. People started coming up to ski again.






One of the medical team members, Dean, gave us a choice. He said that he can bring us down using the board which they normally used to bring the patients down to the base or we can take the chairlifts down. We decided to go with his suggestion and it turned out to be an experience that we would never forget. Now we know what it feels like to snowboard. Thanks Dean! You were great! By the way, what is the name of that board in the left picture?

After reaching the base, we thanked Dean, bid farewell to him and called Fly Paragliding to come and pick us from Coronet Peak for our paragliding. It appeared that we could not fly from Coronet Peak due to the bad weather and we had to detour somewhere else.





We ended up somewhere .... yeah it's somewhere because I can't remember the name of the place. I only know that it's about 1,000 ft above sea level. This was where we took off for our paragliding. Our pilots, Abe and Montano were preparing the parachutes in the pictures below.

After they put on the gears on you, you will look like a Ninja Turtle.





The running and jumping off was scary but once you took off, the experience was wonderful.

Me and my pilot, Abe. My flying gears as well.





We requested to be dropped off at the Skyline gondola after the paragliding. We spent about an hour at Skyline. It was very scenic, unfortunately it was also getting dark so we did not go for any short walk at the Skyline.







That was our Day 11, full of fun and excitement. Till today we remember clearly our "snowboarding" and flying experience and we know we will never forget that for the rest of our lives. While we look forward to our Glenorchy trip the next day, we were also sad that our holiday is coming to an end very soon.