Queenstown

March 16
We had breakfast this morning overlooking our beautiful view before walking to town. Jane  and I went into the first home built in Queenstown, which is part museum like and part art and gift store. It was fun to see it. Then we took the TSS Earnslaw steam boat to a former sheep station on Lake Wakitipu, which is now a demonstration site for how the farms worked. We had a huge meal on the terrace on the lake and then learned about the sheep herding. The farms usually have two working dogs- one called a hunt away dog which rounds up the sheep, and the other is a collie which uses his voice to intimidate the sheep and get them moving. They ran the sheep across the hillside as we watched. The farm had 20,000 merino sheep and 35,000 rowleigh sheep. The wool produced from merino  is used for clothing and the wool is very soft and light, whereas the other wool is rough and coarse and is used for household goods and carpets.The other sheep station, Mt Nicholas and this one provide most of the wool for the brand , Icebreaker, which seemed comparable to our Smartwool.

The steamer we travelled on is a coal fired steamer and the only one remaining in the Southern Hemisphere. We watched them load the coal and work very hard at stoking and shoveling the coal into the burners. The Earnslaw first voyaged in 1912 on the lake and took sheep and horses and people up and down the lake. By the way, the lake's name in Maori means sleeping giant because it looks like a man sleeping on his side. Interestingly, this is the year of the fateful Titanic, and we were told that maybe part of what happened to the Titanic had to do with a fire starting out first in the coal deck. ( We also noted on this boat the last of lifeboats, but luckily it wasn't an issue)

Upon returning to Queenstown we went to the Queens garden and met some young people from London, Germany and Quebec who were playing guitar. Forrest said that he would trade them a song for a song. So the guy from London started to play a song and afterwards, Forrest played a song and so it continued. It was a nice way to spend an hour and it gave Forrest a chance to work on his callouses. Jane had just been saying she wanted to hear live music, so she got to do that.

March 15
We drove to Glenorchy this morning to go on jet boats down the Dart river. We had to stop several times to take pictures, because it was so beautiful. In fact, the writer of NZ Frenzy called it Glen- orgy- it is so unbelievably beautiful. The road to Glenorchy wasn't built until 1962 , and it wasn't paved until 2000!

 We walked around a lagoon walk in Glenorchy for a couple hours and had lunch on the trail before heading back to catch our jet boat.  The town of Glenorchy was comprised of a few lodges and restaurants. In the middle of town is the jet boat operation. The jet boat holds about 12-14 people and is driven by skilled drivers. They have to do 120 hours supervised training and have psychological testing to ensure they can respond appropriately on the river. The boats can run in 4 inches of water and are propelled by sucking in water. The boats can turn on a dime and often he turned and did a 360 which sprayed us all. We went about 60 miles an hour and were told to hang on because it can be bumpy at times.We rode 40 kilometers or 25 miles into Mt. Aspiring National Park.

Two thirds of South west NZ are covered with beech trees and are a different variety from the US species. Te Wahipounamu World Heritage is comprised of four of NZ's national parks: Westland National Park, Mt Aspiring National Park, Aoraki/ Mt Cook National Park and Fjordland National Park..  Milford Fjordland was just on the other side of the mountains or about 10 kilometers from where we were, but it will take 5 hours for us to drive it.. We rode up the river as far as we could go and then turned around to head back to an area called Paradise. There were female little ducks with white heads and brown bodies sand the male ducks were all brown. Besides that, there was little wildlife seen. Supposedly there were some rainbow and brown trout in the river.

We then hiked in a beech forest, which had been used by a local farmer to graze cows and sheep, but can no longer be used due to its UNESCO status. That farmer now rents out his property to Hollywood. There were several movies and commercials photographed here besides Lord of the Rings.

On our return to Queenstown, Jane drove for the first time and did a great job. Forrest had been driving and both made the predictable error of turning on the windshield wipers when they wanted to turn on the blinkers. They are located opposite of what we know.

Notes: Jane is called Jen; Beth is called Beeth and Forrest is referred to as Forrest Gump. John is a well known name here.

March 14
We left Nelson and flew to Christ Church and then went through security again and hopped on a plane to Queenstown. It is located in the mountains and is a beautiful airport. Jane and John were there with a sign saying, " Kia Ora". Well, they were going to do the sign if they had had paper. At any rate, it was a welcomed reunion. We got our car and headed out to find our place on Earnslaw Terrace. We have two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and living room overlooking a stunning view. We settled in and then walked 15 minutes down the hill into Queenstown for dinner.