Day 5, Part 1 - Skippers Canyon

We were collected at 8am by Roy, our driver for the tour we had booked. The tour and company came highly recommended by James' parents.
It turned out that it was just the four of us on the tour that morning, which was great! Personal tour guide!
The warning signs at the start of the road were ominous..

This is definitely the most interesting public road I've been on!

Especially when we met traffic. Glad we weren't next-to the drop!


You can just make out the sign here - apparently up to the left of the bus is a private road!! Bring your four wheel drive!


This road was made to get into the canyon after gold was discovered, and Roy told us many an interesting story about the gold rush times. We eventually got to the old settlement where the miners lived, and sent their kids to school. The school has been recently restored and the walls are lined with old photos from the gold mining days.



At the top we were provided with a little picnic - very civilised!



We took rather a lot of photos that day so here's some highlights:

Views of the Queenstown valley




See the bungee platform on this bridge?


This bit of the river was used in Lord of the Rings. Well, sort of. The top half was composited with another place!


Lots of views of the canyon




This is what remains of an old gold dredger, which was never used because it was destroyed by a flood just after being delivered


This shows the damage done by the gold sluices. They used huge water cannons to wash the hillside down so they could filter for gold.


A birdie :)


This idiot kept getting in the way of the scenery


It was a great tour, loads of scenery to see, history to learn, big drops to look down six inches from the wheel of the bus! I'd definitely recommend it if you're in Queenstown for the day.