More than satisfied, we jumped the gondola up the mountain that overlooks Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu. The ride is gentle, even peaceful and the view up the top is quite pleasant. There’s a luge ride at the top too, so we three all had a couple of runs – on the basic track first cos we had to, then on the advanced track. Apart from having to keep an eye on your video camera that’s about to fall out of your cart, it was fantastic fun, ad not too unsafe if you know what you’re doing; the cart will lean right up on one side before going over, giving you heaps of stop time.
Bryce and I each had to stop on our way down the advanced track (lost stuff out of the cart) which put us in a great position to race the last stretch. He had the front position advantage, but I had greater speed. He blocked my way quite successfully, but the knocks and extra speed he picked up meant he stacked it just at the end of the track. I saw it coming and stopped without hitting him, and had a great laugh. Fortunately there was no serious damage, just some grazes down his leg.
We scooted over to the lookout points for some photos and again stood and appreciated the view for a while. Soon we took off down again and soon after that we were back with the Connections guys for celebratory farewell drinks.
It was of course, great to see these guys as again, and it was out last night. But it wasn’t quite The Same though, with us having been away for a few days and the new people who joined, and this was cool. We had a great time, a few of us sat up in one of the girl’s rooms for a while chatting and sharing some drinks. Susanne got tired and said goodnight and I stepped outside to walk her back to her room (which was next door). We weren’t there long though before I swept her off her feet and we ran off leaving behind only one of her jandals.