Gondolas and the road to Central Otago

Day 15
It’s our last hurrah in Queenstown and the weather is fine a little cloudy but the tourists head out for our morning breakfast and we check out of our digs, say our goodbyes to Kim and Denise who head down to the east coast as Melissa, myself, Ross and Joss continue our adventure - first up is the Gondola to the top of Queenstown and this is the highlight of the trip at this picturesque town - the ride up is

eye opening as the city and surrounds come into view from above there is the chair lift to the luge ride which do twice and have so much fun we also take in the view of para gliders taking off from the grassy runway floating out above the town with bright orange shutes and excited faces of the thrill seekers for all to see - this view and experience is must see if you come to Queenstown - with a coffee break admiring the views we head back down and our venture heads out of town stopping off at Jacks Point a new housing and golf resort at the base of The Remarkables - fantastic links farmland style course shadowed by the 2300 metre range at its back door this is big and the scale is enormous.
Moving towards our next destination we stop off the Chard winery for a quick tasting, surviving the dirt road clinging to the side of the cliff face quite scary when another car is coming towards us, the winery and wine is very nice.
We then drop down to Otago Central and the terrain becomes less

mountainous and more rocky ravines and grassy hills, we travel to the town of Cromwell for some lunch - this is an old gold mining town with a couple of old buildings remnants from the past as the town was moved to higher ground for the dam that was built in 1970s - This is beautiful countryside but one could imagine very cold in the winter as the wind whips across the valley. Traversing further along we site the Bike trails on the other side of the dam and all agree this is something for our bucket list to do in the future. We drop down to the town of Clyde and this is the start of the Otago Rail Trail which goes for over 150km across the sweeping plains and tunnels through the hills and looks so enticing! The terrain becomes much more expansive with some rolling hills and distant mountains, there are green pastures and dairy cows, sheep and the odd deer farm.
We arrive at Naseby which is our stop over for the night and this is real old world Gold town with its lovely old buildings dating back to the 1860s and quite a few still functioning as businesses, the tall trees

dating back to settlement time are mighty impressive, we settle for a good meal at the Royal Hotel and another adventurous day
is done as the journey continues.