Last night I did indeed end up going to the ice bar - Minus 5. It was quite different from what I expected. We were give a huge coat and stuff to keep us warm and the group, about 8 of us, were taken across to the bar by the guy who was to be our bartender for the next half hour. You pay for you drinks before you go into the bar, you can have a maximum of 2 vodka cocktails and 1 vodka shot, and they don't sell any other drink.
Our bar tender took us to the door and told us some stuff about it and then we were let in to the -8 degrees room. Inside was much smaller than I had expected. There were huge ice walls, the bar was completley made of ice, the seats were all ice and there were ice sculptures all over the place. It was really cool, and the cocktails were very nice, but it was much more of a tourist attraction than a bar, good for taking photos in, shame I forgot my camera!
Leaving the bar was weird, we were so cold that being outside felt really warm, which it was not. We stopped for a few drinks in a few more pubs and then headed home. The Irish ones needed an early night, they were leaving this morning for Christchurch so I had to say byebye to them.
Today I decided I should go and check out Queenstown and take some photos so everyone can see how pretty it is. I took the gondola, a cable car thing that goes up a hill, to the top of a huge hill and walked around the viewing platform, taking in the views. It made Queenstown look twice as amazing as from the ground. I had a sit in the cafe and a look around the gift shop and then made my way back down the gondola.
Down at the bottom is the Kiwi Birdlife Park so I figured I would go and kill some time in there. They have 2 "kiwi houses"; dark rooms where they keep the 4 kiwis (as in the birds) that they have, since they're nocturnal. It was pretty cool getting to see them. Theyre very hard to spot in the wild so seeing them here was my best bet. I took a walk around the park, with my stuipd headset thing on that they give you; it tells you information about everything which was cool but it makes you look like an ass, and seen some of the other birds from around New Zealand. Was a fairly interesting and educational walk.
Tonight I have no plans as of yet, other than to change out of my shorts because it is bloody freezing.
