Today, at 9.30am, a workshop would check out Timmy’s problem. Finally! We got up early and drove to Queenstown. We stopped at one lookout on the top of the hills, motor running, to look down on Queenstown from above. But mostly, we just needed to park Timmy at the workshop and hope for the best.

Once parked, we walked into the inner city to sort out what we’re actually going to do now. Queenstown, Queenstown is the city where you need money. I mean, yes, things are expensive, but mostly you need money to do any of the cool things on offer here. Wanna go bungy jumping? Wanna go on a jet boat through the canyon? How about paragliding? Or a tiger submarine on the lake? Maybe take the steamer over the lake? Need a drink at the ice bar? A helicopter ride? All of these things sound like fun and they all are bloody expensive.

After all the stress of driving Timmy for the last couple of days, Flo got to decide while we had lunch. He decided that we would take the gondola up the mountain. YAY! And then, he and Number 3 would go down the mountain in a go cart. *shrugs* Okay then. It was all good and well until he decided to book 6 go cart laps for me as well. To say the least, I was not amused and also terrified. BUT…going down the laps 6 times…it started to be fun at some point. 🙂 I didn’t partake in of the racing the rest of my family engaged in. It was by far the most loved activity for Number 3. He LOVED it! He beat Flo in two of the races they had. And Flo drives a mean wheel, you know.

Afterwards, I got my sweet treat at Patagonia chocolates. That was my “must happen” in Queenstown. We took Flo’s coffee to the playground and hung out. Word about Timmy got to us: The alternator was broken, the new part could be shipped in for tomorrow. YAY! Timmy will be okay tomorrow!

This information made our very expensive campground stay tonight feel less bad. Also, the campground turned out to be AMAZING. It was by far our favourite campground. Super nice views, great facilities and a GAME ROOM with an ARCADE GAME for the kids. I think Number 3 will move to Queenstown if he ever has enough money for it.

On Thursday, Timmy had his operation at 11 am. It was scheduled to take 3 hours after which we would be free to go whereever we wanted to go again. This time, we took it slow. We spent as much time on the amazing campground as we could (latest check out was 10am), then dropped off Timmy. Today, we hung out at the lakefront of Lake Wakatipu and used the playground some more. We also used the time to go into the doc visitor’s center where the knowledgable lady suggested a walk along the route to Glenorchy for us and the kids. It sounded good so after getting a fully repaired Timmy back, we made our way to Glenorchy and stopped at Bob’s Cove for a walk. Picnic Point was a great lookout.

For tonight, Flo had booked a doc site at Kinloch, which is around the top of the lake from Glenorchy. The whole route down there is such a scenic drive, only the last 10km of gravel are in such a bad condition that I wasn’t sure we’d make it to the campsite. But we made it and it was a lovely place to spend the night.