Queenstown and Te Anau

Hey folks, Nomi here with a delayed blog entry.

Queenstown was a very interesting place and we wish we could have seen more
in better weather. The rain prevented us from doing much there and the clouds blocked a good view of The Remarkables mountain range.

However, the first morning we were there, we did manage to get a few hours of no rain, so we headed out to do a "Lord of the Rings" self drive tour. As geeky as it sounds, it was actually really worth it.

You pay $20/car at an automatic gate, get a map and drive around the area, right up to the top of the hill. We were there for 1.5 hours or so. For $2 you fill a tin of food and along the way, you encounter different tame animals, such as alpaca, llama, goats, deer, byson and tibetan yak, which you can feed. As cute as goats and deer are, when they come running towards you when they hear the tin shake, it can be rather frightening. I had about 4 goats head butting each other and me as each tried to get the food first!

There was a very cute moment when we saw a little black goat bleeting at the top of the hill. It was calling for its mother who was gorging herself on the food I had in my hand. After she had enough, she made her way back to the baby, who was trying so desperately to get to her mum. There was another car behind us which had an american couple in it. The guy was videoing this event, and the woman was sitting in the car yelling out of the window "that's so gosh darn cute hon' " - quite amusing.

We got to see quite a few areas where different scenes from LOTR was filmed. Some involved a bit of a difficult walk up a slippery hill, so we did not do those. But the whole area just looked so LOTR and it was very pretty as you had nice views of Queenstown in the background. Near the exit were some tibetan yak which were amazing. They are enormous! They look quite scary too, but are very placid.

We checked out the next morning and made our way to Lake Te Anau. It was our shortest day of travel yet, only about 2.5 hours. There was not much to stop and photograph, as the weather was still bleak.

We arrived at Lake Te Anau and checked into our accommodation at Birchwood Cottages, which are little self-contained cottages sitting in the front of someone's front garden. They are very private and have everything you could want.
It will be nice to have a few lazy breakfasts inside and spread out for a few days. In Queenstown, Neil bought a GPS, so he looked up some geocaches and we went for a drive around town looking for some. He found his first one, which he was very excited about. Those who do not know what geocaching is can have a look at www.geocaching.com

We had a nice dinner at an italian restaurant and had a relaxing evening in.
Tomorrow if the weather is nice, we might do a jet boat cruise. Monday, we are going to Milford Sound, which I am really looking forward to.

Anyway, time to get dressed.

Love Nomes and Neil xxx

PS: More photos are in the gallery