2011 Rugby World Cup Day 15

After breakfast at the hotel, Hunter, Tomasin and I walked through town to the Skyline Gondola and went up to Bob's Peak. The view from the top offers a 300 degree view of Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu and the surrounding mountains. We stopped briefly at a bird park where they were feeding Kiwis, but decided we were short on time.

Back at the hotel, the Tomasin's loaded up their luggage and I drove them to the airport. This was my first experience of the trip driving! Tomasin and Julie are winding their way back to San Francisco. Most of the rest of the group leaves on Thursday. Geselbracht and Barb are staying until early October.

When I got back to the hotel, most of the remaining group headed back to the Skyline Gondola. I headed back up with them. From the top, Swedberg and I took off on a hike. We dropped down from the peak to the Fernhill Track. This loop trail winded its way up a canyon and topped out above the tree line with some spectacular views. At the highest point, we were just short of 3,000 feet, more than 2,000 feet about the lake. From the gondola and back to our hotel, we covered about 5.25 miles. I am looking forward to building a couple maps of the hikes when I get home.

Just as we hit the trail going back towards town, we ran into Ryan, the guide that took us kayaking on Sunday night in Milford Sound. He walked the rest of the way into town with us.

After getting cleaned up, Hunter and I had drinks and hors d'oeuvre with Geselbracht and Barb. The whole group finished the night watching Italy play Russia in Swedburg's room. We ordered pizzas from Winnie's. The game was a blow-out; Italy won by the score of 53 to 17. I got bored in the second half and wandered back to my room to go through the pictures from Milford Sound. Everyone was down early; I was in bed and asleep a little after 10 p.m.