20/08/25 Shiny rocks

Yes, the blogs are getting later and later. Normal for me, compounded by the fact I'm writing them on my phone which is a massive pain. Mostly in my thumbs.

Quick breakfast at Gantley's Tavern again, this time I parked in their carpark and avoided the parking police. I didn't avoid the massive puddle in the driveway though so looks like I'll be cleaning the car before returning it on Saturday.

The area is still epic with snow and mountains, the graphics are definitely better than in the North Island. 

We were off for a day trip to Cromwell with stops along the way, mostly because there's fuck all to see in Cromwell other than large fruits and a lake.

First stop was the original AJ Hackett's Bungy jump bridge which was surprisingly busy given the almost freezing temperatures. Unsurprisingly the couple of jumpers we saw didn't do the dunking in the river option.

Louie passed on the jump but went for the swing / flying fox thing. It was over very quickly, and for the price of $50 for a 20 seconds ride, it worked out as $9000 per hour. Far less value than what you'd get down a quiet alley in Queenstown and without the happy ending. Yep, they screwed him. Avoid.

This is the Roaring Meg. I don't know if the river, the rapids or the power station is Meg but it was more of a hissing than a roar.

The rivers around here are all that wonderful blue tint from the glaciers, this one is the Kawarau River, fed from Lake Wakatipu and the Shotover River. 

Here's a rapid and a not very rapid due to the cold and many layers.

The next stop was the Goldfields Mining Centre, a DOC site with a pretty slight bridge connecting it to the carpark. Adventure tourism! 

We paid our money for the historical gold tour much to the excitement of the anorak boring the ear off the poor lady behind the counter and received our pamphlet map.

Bit of a have to start with, the first part is a 30 minute self guided tour around various bits of hillside. From the photo you pretty much get the same amount of information we got. There was one sign about a sluce fandangle thing then 45 minutes of hard slog up the side of a mountain with some pretty basic signs.

About half way to the summit was an authentic Chinese miners village. As it turns out it was an authentic set for a movie back in the 90's based on the Chinese miners, but it looked authentic.

This did not please me. Such a weird condition to have the front half of you freezing and the back very hot and sweaty. I am very proud that I neither fell down the mountain path or had crippling muscle strains the next day. 

It was a great walk, views over the small valley but not a lot of things to see along the top path. Here is a cave with a grille over the front and a button that says push to turn on the light. It didn't turn on. We later found out these were dug to see if there was gold in the rock.

After we finally completed the walk and came down from the mountains significantly later that the advertised 30 minute mark, the anorak met us in the bank. We then sat through a long story of gold, some related history and a fair amount of unrelated history about his past in Cromwell and Dunedin. He also had a couple of gold "samples" that you could see the gold paint wearing off. Keep in mind it was just Louie and I so it was a very challenging conversation sharing the load of making eye contact and trying to look interested. The guy at the Tucson museum of the desert talking about the history of cochineal was far more unsettling, but at least there I had military jets going overhead to keep me interested.

After we escaped the "history" lecture we were joined by a couple from Brisbane who managed to escape the 90 minute preamble and jumped straight into the good stuff. I think I'd be happy to pay the entrance fee just so I didn't need to do the history section. 

We then got a lengthy lesson on how to pan for gold, and the guide finally buggered off so we could give it a go. Here you can see the results of my efforts.

Yep, fuck all other than fools gold and mud.

After a short drive we got to Cromwell. They have a historic district with some lovely period buildings and very few people. Definitely the slow season.

The Clyde dam has made a very nice waterfront at the cost of parts of the town, but a cost I'm happy with to give me some nice photos. 

The one place that was open was right at the end and a neat bar. The one staff member was sitting out the front on the bank enjoying the sun, and after serving us she went back outside. I had an almost overwhelming desire to gob the beer tap but Louie said no.

City centre Cromwell features an impressive waterfall and river. Actually was a lot nicer than most (all) other NZ town centres. There's almost no graffiti and tagging here!

Excluding wanky pretentious and / or insanely expensive restaurants got us into a Mexican place called Amigos that seems to have a series of locations through Otago. Definitely was well above the level of the other chain Mexican places.

I had a Colorado Chili that really wasn't and Louie had some tacos. Aside from the disinterested service I'd recommend.

The seething nightlife of Cromwell.

Back into Queenstown we stopped in at Patagonia for dessert with a banana sundae.

And to wrap up we bought chocolate bars.

During our after dessert wander about we came across the Queenstown Sky City which did not impress. They could at least pretend to be upmarket while taking your money. 1980's Hastings DEKA had more class and style.

Finally back home, and what we thought was some sort of X-Files UAP experiment turned out to be the night ski at Coronet Peak.