Thar be gold in that thar river!

We woke up this morning to find that the Rental Car request we had submitted last night couldn't be fulfilled. In fact, nearly every Car Hire company in town was sold out!(What recession?) However, after some digging on both our parts, we got in touch with Budget (which, incidentally, does not live up to its name) and procured a white Toyota Corolla. Cameron drove and Dallas navigated on the left side of the road today! It wasn't 100% smooth, but we both did pretty well considering our tendency to be somewhat nervy drivers.

Our first destination was Arrowtown, a gold mining town which sprung up in the late nineteenth century. The Arrow River is (we hear!) the second largest gold-producing river in the world. Naturally, we had to give it a try - after stopping for crepes and coffees at Bon Jour!








Cameron found only pretty rocks, but Dallas found what we think is a tiny fleck of gold! Too small to take a picture of, though. After awhile, Cameron made a bee-shaped enemy and decided she needed to flee the scene, so we spent some time walking around downtown. Here are a couple shots of the town:




We grabbed some pies and headed out of Arrowntown and back up Deer Park Heights, which you might remember from yesterday's Lord of the Rings tour. We had intended to have a little photo shoot, but Dallas was not pleased with the lighting so we gave up. At least we got to visit with and feed a lot of awesome (if somewhat gluttonous) animals!


















Toward the end of our visit to Deer Park Heights, we made friends with some Donkeys. One of them loved us so much that he put himself in the way of our car and refused to let us back up and turn around! Dallas had to go out with the feed bucket and lure them all away while Cameron made a hasty but incredibly skillful 6-point-turn. :)




We finally pried ourselves away from the fuzzy guys and drove to the town of Glenorchy, and the drive was really beautiful! Glenorchy itself is super small but offers an alternate view of the lake.










We finally made it back to Queenstown, where Dallas took this lovely picture:


Bed time is here. Thanks for reading! We're riding horses tomorrow!