Queenstown

 

The town was named because some early settlers said, “This town is fit for the queen.”  The name stuck.  It is a tourist town, with skiing in the winter.  It has restaurants of all kinds and shopping galore.  I bought a sheepskin rug and some jewelery. 

We discovered “The Bakery” on the main street.  Oh my…it was to die for.  They have little meat pies that are “takeaway”  or “to go.”  They have a layered flaky pastry with delicious fillings.  I got “mince and cheese”  and Jerry got chicken and mushroom with bacon.  The mince here is chopped roast beef with gravy.  It is delicious, done right.  We ate while we walked along the busy sidewalks.  Savory pies became my favorite lunch from then on.

 

We went to the Queenstown Gardens, which were beautiful. 

 

A little bridge helped give a feeling of England.

 

 

The flowers were beautiful. 

                          A lilly pond

 It was so peaceful and tranquil.





They had a frisbee disc course there, with places to aim your Frisbee.  It looked fun. 

We took a lake cruise to learn about the area and see the more of the lake.  It was beautiful and very interesting.  We found out that the water in the lake is pure and very clear.  It is equivalent to distilled water.  The town uses it for drinking water. 

 

The guide told us that there was no vegetation growing around the lake originally.  It has all been imported.  It was a true desert lake, but now it is beautiful. 

 

A while back, a captain put willow stakes in the lake to mark the deep water areas to help guide the tourist lake tours he gave.  They eventually sprouted and now there are groups of willow trees growing in one end of the lake.  Funny.

 

We stopped by the bakery again and got a Boston cream donut.  I felt like I was in heaven when I ate it.  It was filled with lots of real whipped cream and the donut melted in my mouth.  It tasted even better than it looked!  WOW! 

 

We drove home on the highway and saw a pretty river and hydro plant area. We thought of Heidi.

We stopped by the store on our way home.   This is the sign in the parking lot:

 

We continue to be amused by some things in New Zealand.

Lunch with Heidi

We stayed at Mischa's house.  Mischa is a friend of Heidi's who works for the U.S. State Department here.  She ended up living in a big house and was willing to share it with us. 
Here are some pics of her house:

 
This is her house with the stairs going up.

 

 

The front room and living rooms

And the coolest part of the house was the bathtub in our bathroom. 

There was also a shower that I don't have a picture of, but this was so classy!

 

 

  

 

These are houses across the street from Mischa's.  It is reminiscent of San Francisco-right?

 We wanted to meet Heidi for lunch and see her office.   Here is our path on the stairs into Wellington. It was beautiful!!

We were actually going down the stairs, but I didn't want Jerry to take a picture of me from behind, so I turned around. 








It's so exciting to be in New Zealand!!

What a surprise!  We came out of the woods into this park. 

This sign made us laugh.  "Woof, woof, Ruff--Dog Exercise Area."  (And there were no dogs in sight--just us getting our exercise.)














  We made it to Heidi's office.  She works for Transpower.

Heidi is smiling, she loves this job!

 

After meeting her co-workers and seeing the office area, we walked a couple of blocks to "Sushi to Go."

  The sushi was amazing!

 

 

 

We went to a park and  ate our lunch. 

Oh yeah, right.  You're just putting your change away.

 

Jerry got meat on a stick instead of sushi.  It has peanut sauce on it.  He liked it!

 

Are you teasing me?  That hurt my feelings....

 

The city is clean and pretty.  There is no litter or homeless. The

people are dressed professionally.

 

 

This was in the park.  Funny.

 

It is a mixture of the old with the new. 
(The building...the building.)

  

  Jerry likes dogs.

 

We looked around the downtown area,

went to an art museum, and took the cable car home.

 

 

By the way, this map shows  where Heidi lives.  The red buildings are Parliament.  She lives across Hill St. from  Parliament in the narrow, small  rectangle building.  Cool!

New Zealand's South Island

We started out for the South Island as the sun was rising.  We were taking our car on the Interislander Ferry. 

 

 

We are waiting in line to drive onto the ferry.

Two cruise ships had just come into the harbor when we left on the ferry.

We got to Picton on the South Island three hours later.  Jerry stayed up top, but it was much too cold for me.  I sat in the reclining lounge on the comfortable chairs where it was warm.  I will post pictures of  Cook Strait on the next post of our return trip. 

 It was beautiful, sunny, and warm that day, so the pictures turned out gorgeous! 

 

The sound from Queen Charlotte Drive (at a lookout spot.)

Rocky!!  This church is in Nelson, on the north shore of the South Island.

They are having a drought in New Zealand. 
 It has rained one day in the three weeks we've been here. 
 It usually rains almost every day at this time of year. 
These boats are showing the effects of the drought.




We took a trail on the Abel Tasman Coast Track.
Jerry and I were tramping!

 We drove the Queen Charlotte Drive.  The views of Abel Tasman National Park were incredible!

 

It was hard to get it in a picture.  It was breathtaking!

We went to Franz Josef the next day, and saw the glacier.  (This pic is off the internet.)

 

We took a path near Franz Josef Glacier.    Wow!








 Fox Glacier was nearby. 
In the parking lot,
was this sheer rock!

We hiked up to Fox Glacier.  It got steep at times.

The path was very rocky from the glacier's path.

 
We made it!  It was exciting to see the glacier up close.

It was a very cloudy day, and we were only able to see Mt. Cook, the highest peak in New Zealand, for a minute.  This is from the west side.  Later in our trip, we were able to see it from the east on a clear day.

 

Many of the rivers in New Zealand have "gravel bars" instead of sand bars, which was surprising.  This is a typical river, and the drought no doubt has made it worse.

 

 

Thunder Creek Falls  on our way to Lake Wanaka.

 

 

We stopped to see the Blue Pools in Mt. Aspiring National Park.  This is part of the trail.                                                        The pools have this gorgeous aquamarine color. The water is so clear, you can see the bottom. All the water in New Zealand is like that.

We made it to Lake Wanaka and our Wyndham condo as the sun was setting.  This is the view out our sliding door of Mt. Aspiring National Park.  Beautiful! 

 

Here is the kitchen and dining area.

 

 

We had a nice-size bed. 

The furniture in the living room was very comfortable.

 

 

 

 

And the pool was right outside our unit. 

It had the best waterslide which curved and then shot you out over the water!  Jerry and I had a lot of fun going down it.  There was a hot tub also.  

 

 

 

After going full speed for 2 weeks, this condo week was a welcome change. We relaxed and regrouped for the next leg of our trip.

 

 

We passed this road sign. 
You don't see this one everyday!

 

 

 

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