Sunday dawns as a day of adventure.

Julian and Fran have been to Ellington as part of a group exploring New Zealand in twenty four motor homes with a group leader. Luckily they don't all travel in convoy but they do eventually all end up at the same campsite.throw this into the melting pot with a Pat Benatar concert on I town and the result is one heavily over crowded campsite. Anywhere a van or a tent could be put there was one.

Anyway their group had booked an excursion on a steam boat up the lake to the Walter Peak Farm, and so we had agreed on Saturday afternoon that we would accompany them. Having agreed this we booked in the reception of the campsite and were issued with a voucher 

We had agree the previous evening to rendezvous at 09.15 tour an to walk down into the town. We had to be at the quay by 9.40 as it was we arrived by 09.30 and were first in the queue for boarding.

We were determined to be first up the gangplank. So when the gangplank was opened, if that is possible, we tried to board only to be told that we had to exchange our voucher for proper tickets. At the ticket office. So Fran and Julian were allowed to board but were repelled.luckily the very pleasant man collecting the tickets told us to return to the front of the queue once we had exchanged our voucher so within ten minutes we were sat beside our friends on the foredeck. The voyage across the lake was wonderful and despite a chill wins appeared to be over much too quickly. 

On arrival at the farm we were invited to join the group in the shearing shed where we were given a brief insight into the difficulties of farming in the high country. This was followed by a display of sheep shearing, masterfully done in a few minutes, a sheep dog display, which would not have won "One Man and His Dog?" Then to cap it all we as a group were offered the opportunity to hand feed some fairly mature sheep. Now it might just be me, but all four of us were truly surprised by the immediate rush forward to do this by the Japanese and the Germans. Perhaps these two nationalities just don't get the chance to see sheep all that often?

After the sheep feeding we were offered morning tea in the homestead, which was cheeses and onion scones and scotch   pancakes with jam and cream on them. Both were really nice  and we enjoyed sitting on the verandah overlooking the lake, taking in the scenery.

After tea we were introduced to some deer and to some long horned highland cattle and we saw some of the sheep dog's puppies who were truly adorable.

After a brief visit to the gift shop it was time to board the steamer for the trip back to Queenstown. We had lunch in a pub, and then after a visit to the local supermarket decided en masse to go up the 

Cable car to the top of a mountain overlooking the town. The views were stupendous and we sat there and enjoyed an ice cream in the sun. So far the weather has been incredibly kind to us. Of great interest to us was the paragliding launch site which was interesting to watch, the kite is u packed and laid on the floor the strings are sorted out, the willing victim is strapped into their harness and then the instructor/pilot gets into theirs and before you can blink, the kite is in the sky and three or four steps and the couple is airborne. Julian was very keen to try this but I have to say it didn't really appeal to me.

On our descent we repaired to Fran and Julian's motor home for an evening meal. We set up on the space outside their van, knowing full well it was another site and as soon as we started to eat long came a giant motor home whose driver apologised for troubling us but who had in fact been allocated that site for the night. Our recourse was to move across the road to another vacant site and continue

 there.

As the temperature fell we moved into Fran and Julian's van and enjoyed a good meal and some good conversation. The red wine and the white wine flowed and we had a great evening. The last two days appear to have passed very quickly.