David began his day at 5 am watching the New Zealand All Blacks defeat Australia in the Rugby World Cup from England.  It was a great game.  Rugby is clearly unappreciated in the US.

Before we drove to Queenstown, we decided to hike the Diamond Trail overlooking Lake Wanaka – about a 3-4 hour hike rated moderate to difficult.  (Little did we know at the time.)  The hike started off benign enough around Diamond Lake.  Next came the stairs that went on & on.  We were planning on heading to the Lake Wanaka viewing area and then, maybe, the Rocky Mountain Summit.  After the stairs,  the trail narrowed to almost less than a goat path (no goats were seen, however).  The view halfway up at the Wanaka viewing area was stunning; however, there were some really wet, slippery, muddy moments.  We decided to take the “plunge” and do the eastern trail to the summit of the Rocky Mountain Trail.  After practically crawling up some spots, feeling like we were mountain climbing,  we reached a plateau with a sign – “trail damage ahead, proceed with caution”.  This little rock climbing adventure was pretty frightening.  If we didn’t have our footing properly on the rock, we would have fallen off the steep edge many feet down the side of the mountain – yikes!  A part of the trail ahead had sluffed off leaving only a big rock to climb over with minimal hand holds.  At least that drop was only 15 feet before you hit any bushes on the steep hill.  We (not really) decided to go for it; although, Lesley was practically in tears and wanted to turn back. The eastern trail had many switchbacks on the very steep, slippery slope with significant portions requiring some bouldering.  We finally did make the summit at 2500 feet.  The views were glorious and worthy of this life-risking trek.  Going down the western trail was much easier with only a few muddy, slippery rock areas  and a very challenging steep dry- bed creek to boulder over.

We were then off to Queenstown, a lovely city on Lake  Wakatipu, passing through Cardrona, a small ski town that was having a Breast Cancer Fundraiser (pics below).  On the way to Queenstown, we also stopped by Arrowtown.  The town is a very quaint gold mining town with many well-preserved buildings used by European and Chinese immigrants dating from the gold mining days of the town.