Go-Karts over Queenstown

New Year's Day was mostly full with our boat cruise and driving back to Queenstown.  Who knew Queenstown was the spring break capitol of New Zealand?  And who knew their summer holidays started at Christmas so Queenstown was overflowing with high school and college kids partying at the start of their summer break.  It added to our adventure.  One of the "must-do" adventures for our trip included riding go-karts at the top of Bob's Peak.  Yep, that's really the name of the mountain.  The gondola is the only way to get up there and is just 5 minutes walk from downtown.  Then the 2 minute gondola ride carries you up over 1400 feet!  1476 feet to be exact.  

It is STEEP!  It's the same tall mountain peeks we'd seen on our drive and in the fiord that are carved by glaciers and make steep U-shaped valleys instead of V-shaped valley like in Utah.

The gondola was an adventure in and of itself.

And the views of Lake Wakatipu were ridiculously cool.  Look at all those colors of blue.

We had to pose for pictures at the top.

And so did Mack and Sam since they came along on the adventure.  Sam thankfully watched Isla so I could ride the go-karts.

Isla got extra picture time since she didn't get to ride.  

And then the adventurers were off.  Isaac rode up with me in the second gondola to the very top.

And Taylor and Miles were behind us.  Steep!

And then this is the view you have as you zip around the top of the mountain going 25 miles an hour.  They call it the Skyline Luge but really they're just sleds with brakes and handles for steering.  And the track is pretty wide so you can race each other.

Mack, Ethan, and Isaac are ready to go!

Taylor and Miles are already off!

After 3 rides each we were ready to call it a day (well, the boys weren't but the adults were).  Not sure we wanted to have to ride the gondola's back down though.

At least there was this amazing view complete with a rainbow to distract us from the crazy descent.