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Queenstown
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| Hobbiton |
Now we are on our own.
It’s quite different from the comradery we have been enjoying the past
10 days. For the last time on this trip
we do laundry, and pack camera gear and other items we will not need until we
get back home.
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| Queenstown from above |
Once complete we walk
back into town for some shopping, lunch and a ride on the Skyline Gondola. The Skyline Gondola ends 1476’ above
Queenstown providing a commanding view of town, Lake Wakatipu and the
surrounding mountains. On top we have
several activities to choose from; luge rides, guided walks, bungee swinging,
restaurants and shopping. They also
offer a service to transport your mountain bike to the top, on a gondola, for
you to ride trails back down. We opt for
the less active activities; restaurant, sightseeing, and shopping.
Our last full day on the South Island. We walk down into town again, views of the
lake and mountains are mesmerizing.
Picking up a few items at the grocery store, then returning to the room
we enjoy a light lunch, preparing for our Lord of the Rings Tour.
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| Lake Wakatipu tour boat |
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| Glenorchy |
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| Frost on the 4th of July |
The van arrives a few minutes early, we board, and are
off. We are in a van full of 9 Lord of
the Rings fans. Sol, our driver, seems
to be the biggest fan knowing all, and singing songs from the movies. We make several stops; he puts us in the mood
of the movie. He has a book with photos
from the movies of the spots where we are standing. He has back stories of the actors and local
participants. While we are riding from
one location to the next, we listen to music from the movies. It is fully immersive.
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| Location of Isengard |
In the dense forest he breaks out cloaks and
swords for us to dress-up in, acting out as Hobbits, Elves, or Gandalf. Nicida was an Elf, I was a very tall Hobbit. It was an enjoyable tour; we wish we had
watched the movies prior to taking the tour so we would have had fresh memories
of the scenes he was talking about.Back in our room we witness more gold and pink clouds as the sun sets. We retire early, tomorrow we are on a flight to Auckland, on the
North Island.
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| Our last evening on the South Island |
Auckland, North Island, New Zealand
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| Hobbiton set |
No problems with our flight to Auckland. After a 30-minute limo ride, we are back in
the big city. Our hotel is on a pier
sticking into the harbor. Looking off in
the distance, many sailboats weave their way across the Waitemata Harbor. Closer, we notice cargo ships tied up to
large docks. Multiple ship-to-shore
cranes are poised, waiting to move the many containers stacked on the
ship. Even closer, small water taxis
wait for riders to board delivering them across the bay; some for work, others
for adventures.
The North Island of New Zealand is the more populated of the
two, with 4 million of the 5.2 million total population. Auckland itself has 1.5 million inhabitants.
Back in our room we make tour reservations to see the
Hobbiton set one day and Te Puia Geothermal Park and Maori Culture the next
day. As it turns out we take the same
general route to both locations, turning in different directions the last half
hour of our 2+ hour ride. We also look
into the Auckland Hop-on Hop-off bus for our final day. Our final day’s itinerary set, we head into
town to see downtown Auckland. We find a
few tourist shops, but generally we feel like it is a bit more
business-like. Tonight is another early
night. Out tour is scheduled to pick us
up at 6 AM with a several hour drive to the Hobbiton Movie Set.
Arriving back in Auckland we head back into town for a late
lunch. We find the downtown area is
built up much the same as Melbourne and Sydney, with multi-level food courts
occupying the empty space between the larger office buildings. The one we come across has many choices;
Sushi, Japanese, Korean, burgers, empanadas from Argentina, and dim sum to name
a few. We choose Japanese Pho and a rice
dish, both of which are very tasty.
Tomorrow another 6 AM tour pickup.
Today is another long drive.
If I had known ahead of time we would have stayed someplace local
instead of another 2+ hour van ride, on the same road. We face heavy traffic this Monday
morning. We are also slowed down over
most of the drive due to patches of heavy fog.
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| Te Puia vents and geysers |
We arrive at Te Puia 10 minutes before our tour starts. We are not able to learn much before we are
on our way. Our first stop is a darkened
building to see the nocturnal Kiwi. The
ones we see are almost a foot tall. Back
outside we are taken to the thermal features of the park. We start with boiling mud pots, moving on to
small geysers, erupting a few feet every few minutes. The many steam vents surrounding us, emitting
the familiar sulfur odor. From there we ride
a tram to the New Zealand Māori Arts and
Crafts Institute. We see indigenous students
working with master crafts people carving wood, jade, bone and stone, and
weaving. The students are on 2-to-3-year
degree programs to learn their craft. We
end our day here with a buffet lunch.
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| Mud pots |
On to Wai-o-tapu, a geothermal wonderland. We see and smell thermal activity. Mud pots bubbling, green and yellow lakes
steaming, rotten-egg odor of venting sulfur.
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| Geyser runoff |
This is a walkable park; we are amazed at all the different thermal
activity. It makes me think of a compact
version of Yellowstone. Our ride home
takes over three hours, arriving after dark we decide to have room
service. It has been a long day. Tomorrow we tour Auckland.
Getting to sleep in, we wake at 730. The breakfast buffet is one of the better
ones we have sampled. As we are dining
we see many water taxis scoot across the harbor. The flurry of activity seems coordinated, a
taxi stops then holds in the open water for a minute or two, a different taxi
pulls out of one of the nearby docks, then the waiting taxi takes its place.
Google directs us to a spot in the middle of a city block to
purchase our Hop-on Hop-off tour of Auckland.
We have gone through this before.
Looking for a door with an office is our first mistake. We miss the two agents sitting on a bench
selling ticket for the bus we are looking for.
A return trip looking for the doorway we missed shows us our error. Bus, museum and Sky City tickets in hand we
wait for the bus. Considering the size
of Auckland it is very green. It sits
among 50 volcanos, the last one erupting 600 years ago. After the traditional ride the full circuit
we hop off at the Auckland Museum, adding a ticket for the Māori Culture
presentation.
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| Hand-woven sail |
The presentation is a series of dances, starting with Haka, the
traditional war dance, which seems to be the main dance we ever see on television. They perform several other dances, with a
dancer explaining and interpreting their movements.
We tour the natural history, and the Māori Civilization
exhibitions in the museum. We are
astounded by the 80’ canoe and hand woven sail both made in the 1800’s. Canoes were their only form of transportation
before motorized ships.
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| Sky City Tower |
Nearing sunset we take the bus to the Sky City Tower. After an elevator ride, we find ourselves 700’
above the city with a 360° view. We tour the
observation deck finally deciding to enjoy our last evening on this trip
watching the sunset, dining on cheese and salmon. The landscape below, looks like a toy village
with lights blinking. Walking back to
our room we stop for chips and the highly recommended Tip-Top ice cream. The ice cream is very tasty, but I love ice
cream. Tomorrow, we head to the airport
then back home to the States.
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| Auckland at night |
Our last day of our adventure, we are greeted with beautiful
gold and pink clouds of sunrise. I
notice that yesterday’s empty parking lot, adjacent to a large cargo ship, is
full of cars and trucks, all standing in lines like soldiers waiting to march.
With warmer weather expected, in Auckland, Los Angeles, and
TX we decide we don’t need the thermal layers we have been wearing since we
arrived in New Zealand. We go through
the airport check in process for the seventh time this trip. Our little scale saves us again, indicating our
luggage is just under the 50 lb limit.
Our trip from Auckland to LA is just over 12 hours, then four hours
waiting for our three hour flight home.
Through the magic of crossing the international date line we arrive home
only six hours later than we started… If only it was really that short.
Our flight to LAX is smooth.
I break out my laptop to import images into Lightroom and do some
preliminary editing. My laptop does not
make it past the bootup screen. I try it
several times, getting the same results.
I sit back, a bit frustrated, wondering what has happened to my laptop. Instead of dwelling on it, I listen to music
and try to sleep. Nicida has better luck
with her laptop, although it moves slow.
She finally gives up and watches movies to pass the time. Little to no sleep for her. We make it through immigration without any
problems. Finding the place to leave our
bags for the next plane is a bit of an issue, along with finding which terminal
we have to go to for domestic flights. Finding
our way, we only a few hours to wait for our last flight. Trying my laptop again, it starts up and runs
like normal. Whew. I work on my images.
Our final flight is empty, we each have a row to
ourselves. The plane is cold. We put on our jackets to stay warm. I resort to working on my images on the
flight putting the laptop on my lap to keep me warm. Arriving at our final airport we find our
driver for the ride home. I don’t think
I could have driven it myself, the long hours on the plane and road traffic
would have done me in. All is normal at
the house. Back to the 90+ degree heat
of Texas.
I hope you enjoyed our Australia/New Zealand story and
photos. Our next trip is already
planned.
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| Our last morning in New Zealand |
Thank you for stopping by.
Mark
Our flight to LAX is smooth.
I break out my laptop to import images into Lightroom and do some
preliminary editing. My laptop does not
make it past the bootup screen. I try it
several times, getting the same results.
I sit back, a bit frustrated, wondering what has happened to my laptop. Instead of dwelling on it, I listen to music
and try to sleep. Nicida has better luck
with her laptop, although it moves slow.
She finally gives up and watches movies to pass the time. Little to no sleep for her. We make it through immigration without any
problems. Finding the place to leave our
bags for the next plane is a bit of an issue, along with finding which terminal
we have to go to for domestic flights. Finding
our way, we only a few hours to wait for our last flight. Trying my laptop again, it starts up and runs
like normal. Whew. I work on my images.
Quite a trip! Beautiful pics.
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