Day twenty five

Today we woke up to a clearer day but the snow had melted quite a lot so unfortunately we were unable to do the Shotover River Jet boat as the river was too tumultuous. We decided instead to head out of Queenstown to an old gold mine on the side of the river which we had passed on the way into town. We had seen they also did jet boating so we thought we’d have a look. It worked out in our favour in the end because their jet boat was still running and we were the only ones there too. It was great fun hurtling round the river really really fast and doing spins and sideways drifts. Our guide stopped at various points and explained a little of the history of the Kawara River which is where lots of gold was found during the gold-rush years.

After the boating we stopped in the mine and learnt a bit about the mining then had a turn ourselves. We had to dig up the ground and pan through it; we were hopeful as a few weeks ago a kid found a piece worth $300. Several pans of dirt later and with very cold hands we gave up having found nothing. Not even a shiny rock. One guy who was there at the same time found a little bit though; probably worth about $10 – hardly life changing but hey, it’s a start.

In the evening we had a really nice dinner in a place called Tatler. Mark had pate, lamb shanks with veg and chocolate brownie. I had ham and pea soup, goats cheese and roasted veg stack with salad and white choc cheesecake. Yum yum yum.