Friday, February 8 - Getting to 10,000

     Diana and I slept in until around 7 am, wondering how the lock decoding worked out.  This is what we saw when we got out of the van;

Kelly only had 500 more possibilities when we saw her, the kids having gone
through over 6000 combinations during the night.  They had quit around
midnight and began again at 6.  It wasn't looking very good.  Kelly counted down
 each 100, then the last 20.  No luck.  We were still stuck behind the gate. 

This is the view early the next morning.  We tried a couple more possibilities
but finally gave up.  So, we stowed our stuff, then waited until the workers
returned at 8. Still none to happy to see us, they opened the keyed lock and
let us out. 

     We drove into Wanaka and had breakfast on the waterfront.

Eggs and hash browns for breakfast.  We shared the park with hundreds of
kids taking part in a variety of outdoor activities marking the first week
of their school year.

      The rest of the day was taken up with driving and sightseeing.  A stop at the Merino Wool Center shop convinced me that at $300 I wouldn't be buying a new wool sweater.  Then on to a river used in the LOTR to portray the River Anduin and the Pillars of the Kings.  

This is where the fellowship passed between the
digitally superimposed statues of the Kings of Middle
Earth

This also happens to be the spot where the sport of bungy jumping was invented.

We all wanted to give it a try, but the $168 cost per person was a bit too much.
Actually, you would have had to pay me way more than that to do it at all.

We had enough excitement driving up the gravel road to get a good view of
the river.  

          We spent the night at a caravan part in Queenstown, possibly the touristy town in NZ.  The location is tremendous, surrounded by lakes and the Southern Alps, but the town itself reminded me a bit of Gatlinsburg.