Day 7 - Queenstown (Name truly representative) (Part I)

Lance Again:

Day 7 - Christmas! (Warning Lots of Pictures)

The morning started off pretty lazily.  The Weber family brought all of our Christmas cards from our family down to the South Island so we could open up some presents on the actual Christmas Day.  After going from place to place for the last few days, we didn't really have anything planned for the day, however we had a super fancy dinner planned for the evening so we were able to take our time during the morning to spend some "quality" time in the van getting ready for the day.  We made it to a church in town for Christmas morning service at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, however it was so hot in there I only made it 2/3 of the way through before stepping outside and listening in from a window.

After James got done trying to eat all of the Christmas cards and we got done with a Christmas Morning church service we headed into town.  We were going to meet up with our friends Megan and Rob who were also down in Queenstown with Rob's family who were visiting from Grosse Pointe, MI.  Before we met up with them, we decided to call our families from the beach to say Merry Christmas to everyone back home.  James got to take a nap in an 'okay place' on the beach and relaxed to the waves from the lake in the background.

After we met up with Megan and Rob, I convinced Maggie to do a small hike with me.  When I say convinced, I mean persuaded her against her will.  She really didn't want to put in a lot of effort on Christmas (she was all dressed up from Church), but luckily I was persistent because it was well worth it.  It was labeled as a 'Walkway' but knowing me, I pushed us to the top of the track.  It was about a half mile elevation climb in a very short period, so it was pretty steep.  It took a lot of coercing to get Maggie to not be in a cranky mood the entire time.

Luckily we found a herd of wild mountain goats right away up close and personal.  That made Maggie happy.  After that, the view became kind of incredible when we trudged our way to the top.

Even Maggie couldn't help but being incredibly happy once we made it to the top and saw the view overlooking Lake Wakatipu.

James decided to start snacking on the backpack at the top.

Little Stinker threw his hat over the cliff face.  Luckily he's got dear ole dad who's up for a challenge to retrieve it.

That little orange dot at the top of the hill in the middle is me.

It was an amazing experience to be some of the only people getting a beautiful view of the Lake.  There's only been two times in our lives that Maggie has really fought me tooth and nail on going for a hike (a third would come later on the trip).  The first was the time I took her to a hidden waterfall in Hawaii where we were able to swim around in the pool below it and were blown away by its beauty.  Safe to say Lance was 2 for 2 after this hike.  It was an amazing Christmas Day with some beautiful views.  After the hike we headed back to the campsite to freshen up for our Fancy Christmas Dinner on the TSS Earnslaw.  More to come on that later.

Note from Maggie on the Hawaii hike:  It was an 8 hour hike on our honeymoon.  Through a sticky rainforest with only 2 granola bars and a bottle of water.  I was promised a one hour hike.  I was tricked.