We went to Queenstown, New Zealand for a week with four friends - it was our gift to each other for our birthdays this year. The landing was pretty dramatic, as the mountains spring up on the coastline.
And for the last 15 minutes of the flight, it was just mountain peaks as far as we could see.
It's late winter in Queenstown and it was a lot colder than Brisbane when we landed!
Sev was sick for the first few days of the trip and there hadn't been snow in quite a while so he didn't snowboard right away. This is the first restaurant we've been to in the southern hemisphere that cooks deliciously perfect bacon. They also have the best pancakes - we had a wonderful breakfast here, in my opinion. Sev wasn't too impressed - he's a culinary critic these days!
We walked around Queenstown and enjoyed the sights.
We walked down to Lake Wakatipu, which is 50 miles long and has mountains surrounding it on all sides!
Then we went to Arrowtown with Tim and Bree. We saw some sheep in the fields and more mountains. You'll notice a common theme in this post - mountains and sheep - because both are omnipresent in Otago, the state we were in. Merino wool is all over the stores in Queenstown, from underwear to pants to t-shirts!
Many of the buildings in Arrowtown are made from this style of stone - I found it really beautiful.
We saw a few of these old fashioned phone booths in New Zealand.
This is the Anglican church, again made of stone and with a mountain view behind it.
This is Mary Mackillop Cottage. Mary Mackillop is an Australian Catholic saint for whom the school I worked at in Brisbane is named - it was fun to see a cottage named for her work in Arrowtown!
Arrowtown was a gold mining town in the 19th century, and has a very "wild west" feel to it, but with nice cafes and boutiques instead of mines and taverns!
There were about 20 - 50 Chinese people in Arrowtown during the mining boom of the late 1800's and this is the town toilet of the Chinese settlement!
This is the largest home in the Chinese settlement which also served as a store, bank, and jail!
I had to duck to get into the jail cell. I've never seen the silly faces I make until now, and I'm glad I don't have to see them on a regular basis!
Sev checked out all the homes in the Chinese Settlement while I was busy reading the history of the area! The Chinese in New Zealand faced racism and legislation to prevent their immigration during and after the gold rush.
All of the people who moved to Arrowtown from China were men who came without wives or children, which may explain the small homes they lived in. They must have been very tiny people to fit under these low roofs though!
The Chinese settlement is on a gorgeous piece of land next to the river, and most residents had their own vegetable garden outside their house. It looks like a pretty nice place to live!
That evening we got dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant with Bree and Tim.
My favorite part of the meal was the fresh garlic bread, which left me with garlic breath even the next morning!
After dinner we soaked in a Japanese hot tub which is half indoor and half outdoor. It was a clear night and we could see what looked like millions of stars! The flash on my camera is so bright it made my eyes water!
The next day we went to Glenorchy with Bree and Tim. This drive is supposed to be one of the most scenic in the world, which I think we would all agree with.
The whole route is along Lake Wakatipu with mountains everywhere we looked. The real sight is about 100 times better than the photos!
Wakatipu is a Maori word, the meaning of which is still unknown. The Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand, and they have a very rich culture and history that we learned a lot about on this trip. Their legend says that Lake Wakatipu was formed when an ogre was burned while lying asleep.
Bree and Tim dropped us off in Glenorchy then they travelled a little further to go horse riding. Glenorchy is a tiny town consisting of about 10 buildings in total and was an absolute ghost town at 9am so we walked around near the lake. We learned that this is where the steamship TSS Earnslaw stopped to unload people and freight during the mining and timber boom of the 19th century. The Earnslaw is now a tourist cruise ship which we saw later in the week.
We walked out on the pier for some amazing views of the head of Lake Wakatipu. The mountains in view here are where a lot of Lord of the Rings was filmed! I can just imagine a gollum living up in a cave here.
This little train is the smallest railroad in New Zealand, and was used to transport items from the steamship to the boat house!
Finally a coffee shop opened so we sat in there for a while trying to stay warm and waiting for a restaurant to open so we could eat some breakfast! At least we had a great view!
The fur shop across the street sells all kinds of possum fur items - hats, gloves, socks, pillows, blankets. We could hear the owner of the shop sewing her items in the back room.
Possums in Australia and New Zealand aren't related to possums in North America - they are cute and have very soft fur. Unfortunately possums are an invasive species in New Zealand so the Department of Conservation traps and kills them, and their fur is a byproduct of this process which is then sold commercially.
We went for a short "tramp" as they say in New Zealand, before Bree and Tim came to pick us up.
The views were even better on the way home since the sun was high in the sky and the mist had burnt off! Lake Wakatipu is New Zealand's biggest lake, and is up to 1300 feet deep!
The color of the lake was much brighter later in the day as well!
Sev looks like he could be a model for North Face here!
That evening we took the gondola 450 meters above the town center. I was super scared at first because the gondola line is very steep and nearly vertical at the top!
There were some amazing views from the gondola.
And even better views from the top!
It was almost dusk and cloudy that day so I decided I'd have to come back on a clear day for better photos.
There is a hiking trail that zig zags along the gondola line that I wanted to go up, and the structure with a green roof here is a bungee platform. We also saw a mountain sheep on our way back down!
On Wednesday it rained non-stop in Queenstown and even snowed at times, which means it was snowing all day on the mountain. Sev and the others decided to hit the slopes and I shopped my heart out in Queenstown. I also did some sight seeing, like this Anglican church, St. Peter's.
In the distance is the mountain where the gondola runs, which you can see is whited out about halfway up! This was not the day to go back up for some better photos!
The snow came down to Queenstown a couple times but didn't stick on the ground. It was snowing in the mountains all day though, and very beautiful!
This is the door of a public bathroom in town! One thing I love about Australia and New Zealand is their great sense of humor.
The group tried to go to the Remarkables ski resort but were turned around halfway up because it was closed due to the storm, so they ended up at Coronet Peak.
It sounds like it was a pretty nasty day with no visibility, and poor Kristy in the pink coat had never skiied before!
Sev said he took these photos during a 10 minute period when there was some visibility!
Everyone agreed it was a hard day of skiing but with good snow.
As usual, there were gorgeous landscapes at the ski resort.
Bree and Tim's little rental car needed snow chains to make it up to the mountain!
Thursday gave us beautiful blue skies and the group went to Cardrona ski resort while I stayed in Queenstown. I'm not really a fan of Starbucks but coffee shops down here (with the exception of Starbucks) only serve espresso and I only like filtered coffee! So one wonderful treat in Queenstown was my Starbucks filtered coffee every day!
The gondola hiking trail still had a lot of snow on it, and since it's so steep and rocky anyways I decided to ride the gondola to the top again. And thank goodness I did - it was amazing at the top! These mountains are the Remarkables.
This is the view from the back side of the gondola building, toward Coronet Peak ski resort.
This is the north view toward Glenorchy. That tiny steamship on the lake is TSS Earnslaw.
On my way down the gondola I saw someone bungee jump! It was a much shorter cord than I expected though, and didn't look very scary. I am too scared to do it nonetheless!
I went to the Kiwilife Bird Park after the gondola, which was one of my most memorable experiences in New Zealand being such an animal lover. I saw the conservation show where they had several trained animals, most of which are protected native species that are in the park for rehabilitation or breeding then released back into the wild. This is a red crowned parakeet that was trained to swoop very close to heads. I thought it was going to poke my eye out once!
This is the possum that was brought over from Australia and causes lots of problems in New Zealand - they eat the leaves of native trees to the point of killing the tree and leaving no food for native birds, and they eat the eggs of native birds as well! I learned that New Zealand has only 3 species of native mammals and they're all bats.
This is a New Zealand wood pigeon, and it looks like an obese pigeon! I saw another one at the park that was the size of a chicken!
The tuatara is very special because it's the only animal currently living that was alive in the time of dinosaurs! It's also born with 3 eyes, one of which gets covered by skin and disappears eventually. They can live to be 200 years old!
I got to pet the tuatara, and she had surprisingly soft skin!
The main attraction of the park is the kiwi, which is the national bird of New Zealand and is very rare. Live kiwis aren't part of the show because they're nocturnal so they live in a dark habitat that makes them think it's night time during the day. Visitors can go inside to see them, but we can't take photos since it needs to be dark in their home. The presenter is showing an x-ray of a female kiwi about to lay an egg. Kiwis' eggs are one third their body weight, which would be like a human giving birth to a four year old! They lay the largest egg in relation to body size of any bird, and females can't eat the last few days before laying their egg because there's no room for food!
The kiwis were definitely my favorite part of the park. They are unique animals - flightless birds with bone marrow and no wing whatsoever, very long pointy beaks with whiskers like a dog or cat around their mouth, and fur-like feathers. They burrow in the ground all day, which is partly why they're so vulnerable - dogs and wild animals find them easily and eat their eggs. They walk around in their habitat constantly poking their beak into the ground and eating little bugs that they find. One of the females was about to lay an egg any day, and the park keeps baby kiwis for the first year of their life then releases them into the wild when they're strong enough to fend for themselves.
Most tuataras are hibernating but the juveniles live in a warm habitat so they don't hibernate. They are so funny because they can sit completely still for hours on end and this one even had its mouth open with a leaf hanging out of it and didn't move at all!
I also learned that Doug Fir trees are another invasive species in the region that block sun from native trees, which die and then the birds starve because their food source is gone. This is why so many of the birds in the park are protected. They are trying to cut down as many Doug Firs as they can but there are a lot of them! They were brought to New Zealand from the pacific northwest during the gold rush of the 19th century, and I've heard these trees called Oregon timber many times down here!
The kea is a large parrot that's known for its trouble making. It's the only parrot in the world that lives above the tree line in the mountains. This one was so cute I wanted to take it home! We saw a wild one a few days later just sitting in the middle of a road glaring at us. The kea is one of the biggest parrots at about 19 inches tall.
The keeper came in to clean out this kea's house and the bird walked over to the keeper and watched intently as if it was supervising his work! There's a shoe in the kea's home because they like to chew on rubber and are known to terrorize cars by chewing on their tires and ripping off their windshield wipers! Keas seem to be numerous because they're attracted to tourist destinations being such curious animals, but there are only 5,000 keas.
This Antipodes Island Parakeet flew over to check me out when I was taking photos of it!
I forgot the name of this bird, it's a type of bush chicken and it's very shy. I was able to see it up close because they fed it when I was there, and it's very cute! I reminded me of Quita running around in the forest hiding from me!
Sev and the crew went skiing at Cardrona that day and had a pretty good time with the fresh snow that had fallen the day before.
Sev said there weren't many advanced trails at Cardrona though.
There was much better visibility than the previous day, and no snow fell during the day.
As usual, there were wonderful views of the region from atop Cardrona!
On Friday we drove to Milford Sound for a cruise in the sound, which is a long curvy 4 hour drive through the mountains! We saw what seemed like millions of sheep! There was a mother sheep running around baa-ing for her babies, and after a few minutes they came running up and she calmed down - I felt so sorry for her!
There were unbelievable views everywhere we looked, with mountains all around us.
The trees growing in the valleys of the hill here look very weird to me!
I loved seeing the sheep scattered about the mountain side - all the white dots on this hill are sheep! They were so darn cute roaming around eating the grass all day! We also saw lots of baby lambs which are just the cutest things ever. It's a good thing I don't like lamb because I'll never be able to eat it again after seeing how cute and peaceful they are!
We didn't see any crops growing, just sheep, cow, and elk farms - I don't know what the crevasses on this hill are. Any ideas?
This is where the mountainous terrain started - this view is what we saw on all sides!
The mountains we drove through are huge sheer rock walls with snow on them. They were created by a glacier 15,000 - 20,000 years ago! This is near where we saw the wild kea.
This is the opening to a tunnel we went through, which shows just how huge the mountains are. This is a one lane tunnel that has a traffic light on each end that gives alternating lanes the right of way for 15 minutes at a time. The tunnel was very scary to drive through, as the walls aren't finished and just look like a hole that has been blasted through the mountain!
Milford Sound is actually a fiord, as the rock formations were created from a glacier, that runs 15 kilometers inland from the Tasman Sea on the west coast of the south island. You can see that it's surrounded by rock mountains on all sides that reach up to 1,200 meters high.
The region is heavily forested and received 268 inches of rain per year - one of the rainiest places on earth!
The Maori name for Milford Sound is Piopiotahi, meaning single pio (a type of bird that's now extinct). There's a legend that the Maori hero Maui tried to win immortality for mankind, and when he died a single pio bird flew over this fiord in mourning.
This is lion rock, because it sort of looks like a lion lying down.
The earth is rich in minerals in this region - copper, iron, quarts, and gold. It's a UN heritage site, so mining isn't allowed.
There are many types of animals that live in the water, one of which is the rare black coral which normally only lives in very deep water, but because Milford Sound has dark water that doesn't allow a lot of sunlight through the coral grows in the shallow water here and can be seen from an under water observatory.
Our boat went right into this waterfall, giving us a close up look at it!
You can see some of the hundreds of waterfalls here - everywhere we looked there were waterfalls!
The best part of the cruise - and maybe the best part of the trip for me was seeing these two tiny Fiordland Crested Penguins! You can barely see them in this photo but they were so clear and little in real life! This region is an important breeding ground for the penguins, and the only place on earth where this species lives.
I found this photo online so you can see what they actually look like! They're about 24 inches tall and usually weigh about 8 pounds.
This waterfall runs along a fault line!
We also saw a group of male seals lying on a rock. I wouldn't say they were sunning themselves as there was no sun to be seen!
These seals were exiled from their pod and will have to earn their way back in once they're of breeding age! Poor little orphans!
Here's the other side of the one lane tunnel on the way home. Sev drove our little rental car so hard on this trip that a fan broke and it kept overheating after that!
Our last full day in New Zealand we went to the art market and found this soap stall! They were the prettiest soaps I've ever seen, and very good quality made of goat's milk and olive oil.
Then we drove an hour to Wanaka where I dropped Sev at Treble Cone ski resort - one of the top ten in the world! It seemed like there wouldn't be any snow at the resort as there was none on the road up or even the hills.
We stopped at a lookout point and saw a para glider.
This road is typical New Zealand - it's a miracle I didn't get more carsick with these curvy roads!
Sev loved driving on the windy roads, except that I kept telling him to slow down!
We saw new mountains up near Wanaka, but just as beautiful as the others!
Finally we saw some snow on the mountains, but there's still not much snow in this region compared to where we come from. It's more of a high desert climate and a lot of the ski resorts have snow machines at them!
This is the entrance to Treble Cone - it looks more like a ranch than a ski resort!
The road to Treble Cone can only be described at treacherous - a windy, extremely steep one lane gravel road on the edge of the mountain. I really can't imagine how it would be possible to drive this road in the snow - my only guess is that it doesn't snow this low very often.
Our car overheated about halfway up, and we had to stop to let it cool down. You can see the ski resort up above. This is when Sev realized a fan was broken. I was so terrified to drop him off and head down by myself with a broken car!
I did make it down to Wanaka town and got a gorgeous view of Mt. Aspiring and Lake Wanaka once I arrived. Mt. Aspiring is one of the highest mountains in New Zealand at 3,000 meters. I walked around town and enjoyed the views for a while until it was time to pick up Sev again.
On our way back to Wanaka from Treble Cone in the afternoon, we saw these poor elk that live on a farm and have had their racks cut off! They were very curious until we stopped, than they started running away!
This cow was standing near the street as well and looked a little spooked like she might come at us when we stopped to take a picture! She was so cute though! We also saw some sheep in the road on the way back to Wanaka - it's like the farmers opened their gates in the evening to let the animals run around.
We had an amazing seafood dinner overlooking Lake Wanaka and Mt. Aspiring before heading back to Queenstown. Additionally, Sev got some good news about work this day so we had a celebratory drink in his honor at dinner!
New Zealand has a large wine region so we went to a wine tasting bar once we got back to Queenstown.
Our final morning in New Zealand we just walked around town and relaxed before catching our flight. We saw the TSS Earnslaw which is now a tourist boat. It's the only running steamship in the southern hemisphere!
The coal smoke from the ship smells so bad and polluted the air horribly! I had to get away from it!
I found my next pet - a larger than life kiwi!
We went back to Vudu Larder for a coffee and muffin snack. Sadly the muffin was undercooked and soggy, but their other bakery items were just gorgeous!
As usual Quita was overjoyed to see us when we got home, and she immediately shredded the possum tail chew toy we brought her from New Zealand!
