best. day. evar.

1. wake up next to my honey and not be in a rush to check out
2. take advantage of the day's short two hour drive from Haast to Queenstown by taking an off-road, muddy, cow-poop-filled detour along the sea shore
3. pull off the freeway for an hour to drive down to the banks of a very large, very shallow and unrealistically clear river in order to fill up the water bottle and take the risk of drinking right from the earth (it was really good and really cold)
4. decide the river bank is a great spot for a midday break by making a small fire in the stone and smoking half a j
5. pull off the freeway to investigate "Thunder Creek Falls" only to find the entire path is wheelchair accessible, the sub-tropical/alpine (yes, you heard right) forest is breathtaking, to find a brilliant waterfall that makes you wish it's summer and you can wade across the river and sit under the waterfall. after watching the water fall down the cliff for what turned out to be twenty-five minutes we realised we were completely stoned.
6. consume an entire large bag of apricot oatmeal yoghurt cookies in five minutes
7. take in the river views of haast pass
8. pull off the freeway to witness brush fires being tended to by a helicopter. the copter would dip his ginormous bucket in to the lake, fly over us to the fires and dump the lot. he gave up about fifteen minutes after we started watching. the poor guy hadn't accomplished much.
9. arrive in to queenstown just as the sun is setting against the mountains, check in to the lovely peppers hotel and enjoy our lake/mountain view.
10. have a delicious supper of "wengyu" (the new zealand version of kobe) and porterhouse accompanied by the world's best potato salad at Beefeater Steak House
11. take in a screening of the most excellent action extravaganza Bourne Ultimatum 
12. hurry home in the freezing wind to curl up in snuggly bed comfort with my honey

shoot me now

photos found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaearhart