We began the slow climb up the valley, encountering a bit of slush on the road near the saddle, and rather more on the downward side. And plenty of grit on the road.
The road had clearly been ploughed (plowed, for the Murricans in the audience) - the plough hadn't quite lined up with the road markings, so sometimes the upward-bound lane was kinda skinny, and we were driving well onto the shoulder, sometimes the other way round. The route down was mostly a series of hairpin turns, dropping quickly down to the highway about 10 minutes from Frankton.
We kept on into Q'town, and got turned about in the maze of one way streets trying to find a car park. Ky was getting a full blown dose of the hangries, so we ended up parking in a parking lot not far from the lake (Wakatipu).
We checked out the menus of the three nearest eateries and picked Devil Burger.
After settling by the fire to warm up and perusing their extensive menu, Jos and Ky both went for the bacon and eggs version - Jos chose his in a wrap (Walk of Shame), Ky in a burger (Rising Sun), including a hash brown and hollandaise sauce, but omitting mushrooms and avocado respectively. JD chose the Bottomless Pit (chicken, avocado, brie, bacon, aioli, roast capsicum and apricot relish), and I had a Dark Knight (venison, kumara (NZ sweet potato), mushrooms, and plum and tamarillo relish). They were large burgers, and quite good. The boys also had a large and quite good hot chocolate. Empty when we went in at 12:30pm, it was full by the time we left a short hour later.
We wandered about town for a little, to let our lunch settle, and listen to the kids bitch.
We browsed the Saturday market, found a pressie for Matt, and wandered up and back a bit. There was a Louis Vuitton shop next door to a cheesy theme pub, across from a Readings Cinema. There were gift shops of varying levels of tackiness, with plenty of pounamu (greenstone/jade) doohickeys, bone pendants (mostly deer antler) and paua shell (abalone shell) thingamabobs, and the like.
We then went onto the Q'town pool, which a fairly new and very well designed aquatic centre. There are four pools - a 25m lap pool, set at 27deg (excellent swimming temperature), a leisure pool with a lazy river at 32deg (good for kids playing), an adults only hot pool at 39deg (perfect for aching legs, especially when staying at a place with no bath), and a separate swim school pool (also 32deg). The kids also enjoyed the hydroslide (NZ$2 for unlimited rides). We probably spent a good two hours there and were all suitably worn out afterwards.
We dropped into Maccas for caffeine, fat and sugar (Coke slushie and muffin for the boys; coffee and caramel slice for JD; tea and McFlurrie for me), and then returned home, taking the long way round.
We dropped in to pick up a few ingredients from the supermarket, including 1.2kg of fresh local greenlip mussels, and some ciabatta rolls, and then made chilli mussels using my from-memory version of this recipe, serving Jos's over pasta with no mussels. It was deee-licious.
I'm now sitting over the last of my wine, JD's on the couch watching one or other of the Matrix movies on telly, and the boys are in bed, talking/bickering as they are want to do. I'll be off to bed soon - we've another early start tomorrow, and we're REALLY hoping for clear skies and light winds.
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