We woke up early for our Safari of the Rings tour! It was quite cold and cloudy out, but it still was an amazing tour. Joe and I were the only two travelers in our Land Rover (named Bilbo), so it was nice because we got to ask as many questions as we wanted!
Our driver actually had worked on the LOTR movie set, so we got to hear all of his stories about having drinks with the cast, where he is hiding behind trees in particular scenes, and his work with the stunt doubles. He said working on that movie was so exhausting that he actually retired afterwards. He thought about going back to work on the Hobbit to see everyone again, but decided he couldn't do the demanding hours all over again.
We couldn't see as much with rain and clouds, but what we could see was still completely worth it!
After the tour, I decided I wanted to do the Shotover Jet. It came highly recommended from our EF tour director. Joe opted to walk through the gardens.
The jet goes about 50 mph down shallow parts of a river (he said 10cm deep)! You could feel the boat bouncing off of the rocks beneath. They would drive you through really narrow canyons and scare you by driving super close to the rock walls!
I met back up with Joe for dinner. We decided to eat at a local Mexican restaurant and do a little more shopping before calling it a night.
This morning, we wanted to see The Remarkables, a group of mountains that have hidden behind clouds almost the whole time we've been here. We took a gondola up a mountain to see them, but the clouds had risen too high. We joked that we would finally be able to see them as we were flying out of Queenstown--it ended up being true!
Now we are on our long journey back home: Queenstown - Auckland - Los Angeles - San Francisco - Raleigh!
See you on the 4th :)
