Queenstown

On Monday, we flew to Queenstown on the south island.  It is a beautiful town on Lake Wakatipu, situated in the mountains. It reminded me of Banff or Kelowna. We stayed in a great B&B with a magnificent view out of our window over the lake.  It’s called Lake Vista B&B and is hosted by Beverly and Ian McLenaghan. You can view their B&B at www.lakevista.co.nz.  We had dinner that evening on top of the mountain, which had magnificent views of the lake and surrounding mountains.

 Views from our room in the B&B

 Queenstown Mall

 They have a steamer ship which was 90 years old (but not as old as the Seguin in Muskoka)

 Views from the top of the mountain where we had dinner. Spectacular!

That's Queenstown below. It's not very big.

 Para-gliders are everywhere in New Zealand. New Zealanders love to jump off things.

On Tuesday morning, we drove to Arrowtown, an historic gold mining town. It was very quaint.  There was also a preserved section of the Chinese Settlement.  Over 40% of the gold mining labour force was made up of Chinese workers, who were forced to live outside of the town in their own area.

"Main Street" in the old west. Looks like a typical western town.

 Yes, that's real gold on the rusted shovel

 The Chinese merchant's house

 The communal outhouse. No privacy here.

In the afternoon, we drove to the far end of the lake to Glenorchy and took the Jet Boat ride up the Dart River.  What a blast.  The Dart River is fed from a glacier further up stream.

 We drove about 40km to the far end of the lake. It was a very pretty drive.

Getting our protective gear on. Waterproof coat and life jacket.

It was a windy ride. The jet boat did about 75-80/km/hr

The glacier river bed was full of rocks. During a heavy rain, the river is completely flooded.

Having a blast. It was lots of fun, especially when the driver did a 360 degree spin.

On the trip back, we did a guided nature walk through the rain forest (which is an extremely dry area) and then a ride on a 4X4 truck through the area where Lord of The Rings was filmed.  It was a fun day.

 This forest is a rain forest, but it's extremely dry, as all the rain water runs off quickly.

 This tree is over 700 years old

 The tree is hollow for 2\3 of it's height, which will hasten it demise.

 This chair was used in the 2nd Hobbit movie (not yet released) to make the giant look big
and the hobbit look small. It's on lone to the park for 6 months, but then must be removed.

 This is where they filmed a big battle scene in the 2nd Lord of the Rings movie,
where they had 500 horses running over the hills in the background.