Saturday – Queenstown

| June 10, 2006 3:58 pm

Our day began with ambitious plans; we were going to hire a private plane to fly us to Milford Sound then get on a boat cruise. Unfortunately, the pilot called to tell us that the weather was to rainy in Milford to make the trip. We switched to plan B and started the day with a drive to Deer Park Heights. This park is where Lord of the Rings filmed some scenes for the second movie: the Two Towers. Of course, there were amazing spectacular views of the mountains, lakes and city nestled below.6781

This park also features feeding stations where you can buy tins of food to feed to the various animals: horses, llamas, goats, sheep, deer, yaks, chickens, etc. The kids had a great time watching dad feed the animals; they were too scared to come out and pet them 🙁

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Our second stop was the Queenstown Gondola. Once again, the view was marvelous. We took some snapshots. Bart refused to ride the luge, once again, so we headed back down to head off to our next stop.

Our third stop was a 1/2 hour drive to Arrowhead. This tiny town at the base of the valley features few shops but one unique bakery. We had an order of gingerbread cookies, carrot cake and custard with the most delicious hot chocolate over at the Arrohead bakery. We stopped by an old Chinese Settlement and saw how the chinese gold miners lived in relatively poor conditions. After Arrowhead, the kids took a rest back at the apartment while I went to take some more snapshots of the landscape. I must say that we’ve seen the most unusual skies here in Queenstown. Sunrise and Sunsets turn the sky, lake and mountains pink and purple with a beautiful variances in between. I took some long exposures and I hope the colors are captured well.

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After the kids rested up, we headed to a bar called Celsius -5. It is a bar made entirely of ice that features some rather tasty drinks. The kids had a blast touching the various ice sculptures and tasting the fruity drinks. We finished the evening by heading for dinner at a “mexican” restaurant called Sombreros. The food was “different”. I didn’t think it was possible to remove flavor from rice, but the Kiwis here managed to do just that. The “fajitas” I ordered tasted more like carne guisada than fajitas. The “chips” are what we would consider Sam’s Club round chip big box special. The only “true” tasting mexican food here was a giant tortilla smothered in garlic butter. Dinner cost around $70 NZD + tip so we were somewhat disappointed. We are planning on taking our Milford sound flight tomorrow but it looks like we might get rained out here in Queenstown. Hopefully it will snow tomorrow or Monday as well.

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3 Responses to “Saturday – Queenstown”

Daniel wrote a comment on June 12, 2006

Mabey you can do the conversion to american money.

OF wrote a comment on June 12, 2006

Heard there was some bad weather out therein NZ…
When are you guys scheduled to be back again?

homer wrote a comment on June 12, 2006

The exchange rates fluctuate but on average $1 US Dollar = $1.60 New Zealand Dollars (NZD) so something that costs $1000 NZD = $625 USD.

As for the weather, it’s a funny thing. We’ve had mostly clear blue beautiful skies the whole time we’ve been here. We were expecting snow in Queenstown to go skiing or tobogoning but it didn’t really start snowing until last night and only in the mountains. Not enough for skiing or for sleighs 🙁 It did rain a bit though……

As for the bad weather, last night there were snow storms west and south of Queenstown and some even in Christchurch but we’ve been relatively clear. I wish I could post some pictures of the purple/pink/blue sky reflecting on the lake and turning it pink but I’ll do that when I get back.

As I post this comment it is Tuesday evening in Auckland around 5:30 p.m. We’ll be flying out tomorrow (Wednesday) night at 9:45 p.m. and should be in Houston (Wednesday) night around 10:00 p.m. Around the world in 15 minutes!