Queenstown and Milford Sound

From Dunedin we drove to Queenstown, one of NZ's top vacation spots, and it was just as beautiful as everyone said it would be.  We stayed at a place right on the glacial lake, with mountains all around.  Quite amazingly lovely in the sunshine.  We rode the gondola up to the top of the mountain, and here is the view of the city from inside.  We decided to forego the bungee-jumping, the parasail and the luge but watched as others took the plunge.  Down below, the steamship Earnslaw ferried folks back and forth across the lake.

We took a walk through town with its many tourist shops and then walked around the edge of the lake.  Had dinner at the Coronation Boat House right on the shore and watched the paragliders coming in for the evening.  Here's a picture of one.  They were aiming to land on their feet on the shore or on a small dock just a little ways out.  People would cheer if they made it and groan if they made a big splash and required a pick-up from the rescue boat. All of this with the sun going down over the water.  Quite entertaining.

The second day was a long one.  We took a a coach with a glass top four hours to Milford Sound for a day cruise, then four hours back.  Milford Sound is in Fiordland, and we learned that a fiord is a bay carved out by glaciers.  We traveled through some breathtaking mountain scenery, past clear mountain streams you could drink from untreated.  We saw where rock avalanches and tree avalanches had occurred and squinted at the glacial ice and snow on the mountains.  Dean, our driver, said everyone should see Milford Sound at least three times:  once in the sun (as we did), once in the rain (which is usual; it's a rain forest where it rains 220 days and over 100 inches per year) and once in the snow.  In this part of New Zealand, the alpine environment gives way directly to the rain forest, also true in parts of S. America.  History lesson:  in prehistoric times, there was a super-continent, known as Gondwana-land, which broke apart into most of the land masses of the southern hemisphere, including Australia, NZ, South Africa, South America, and Antarctica; so a number of these places share commonalities.

When we arrived in Milford Sound, we boarded the Milford Monarch in sun and really enjoyed the cruise.  Apparently, when it rains, there are more waterfalls, but we didn't feel we had missed too much. Here are two pictures:  one with tourists, one without.

On the way back, we watched a movie starring Anthony Hopkins, which was the story of Burt Munro, a Kiwi who'd set a speed record on his Indian motorcycle at a pretty advanced age.  I looked over to see if John was contemplating setting a new record for the luge the next day, but, after twelve hours of travel, we were mostly just ready for sleep.