Leaving the long drives south behind us, we arrived in the legendary Queenstown. Its one of those places every backpacker tells you about. It certainly has a bit more life to it in the middle of winter than many places, and therefore is a bit more on the pricey side. However, it has to be admitted, that it is one of the most stunning locations we have visited. Grudgingly, I allowed myself to be dragged on the gondola up to the top of the hill for views of Lake Wakatipu and the mountains. It was actually worth it though, despite all my grumbling.
Another big plus to Queenstown was that we finally got to try out our new skis at The Remarkables. We were once again really lucky with the weather and we had stunning views across the mountains and the lakes, and some fab snow to top it all off.
Knackered after a day on the slopes we showered and prepared dinner and readied ourselves for a few drinks in town – but just going to lie down for ten minutes …. famous last words! I am pretty sure I would have slept through the entire night, only that we awoke some time after 9 to find the van shaking, as if we were driving down the N7 at the Curragh in a strong wind. I got up, looked out the window, to find that nothing else appeared to be shaking and the trees were only swaying slightly. We considered the wind idea – we were fairly sheltered, surrounded on 3 sides by larger vans, hardly that. Kids messing? shaking the van? possible, but they were metronomic in their rhythm and pretty quiet. It eventually stopped, and we conked out … until 6.45, when the alarm, set from the previous day went off, and Schmo saw a text message from a concerned Sarah just checking we were ok after the earthquake …….. ahhh that explains it. Turns out, it was not all that far away, a couple of hundred km, one of the biggest quakes in NZ history, 7.8 on the Richter scale with an aftershock 20 minutes later, measuring 6.1! My first earthquake eh? How about that!?
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