Started to blog and then lost all of my information and have not been able to get back to a computer since. Well, here goes! Timeline is from present to past, so reading from beginning date would be easier.
3-15-10 We flew to Aukland, NZ (the North Island) this AM. It was only a 2-hr flight and no time change! We are staying in a beautiful hotel in the main part of town. This will only be a 2-night stay. We had a very nice city tour this AM and will have a Maori (indigenous people) presentation this afternoon at 4:30. Tonight we have a group dinner at the hotel, which sounds wonderful. Tomorrow some of them are off to sail Aukland Harbor (think I will miss this one since the harbor looks rough). The city is known as the City of Sails...it is completely surrounded by water and is a very narrow land mass. The city has 1.3 million and is very spread out, like Los Angeles. I will go to the museum tomorrow and join the group for the Maori show. Have a terrible cold today so am trying to make it through...mind over matter! We have been in such varied weather. Queensland was very cold (as can be seen below)
3-14-10 The group went on a cruise around Milford Sound, which is not a "Sound" at all. It is a huge lake, filled with glacial water and is located in the middle of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen. Queenstown is known as the adventure capital, since there is hang gliding, jet skiing, bungy jumping and just about anything someone wants. The mountains are about 10000 feet and absolutely gorgeous. I can't tell you how breathtaking the scenery is in that area. You have to see it to believe it! The trip was a 4-hour tour bus trip each way and was well worth it! We got back about 7:00PM and I fell into bed with my cold.
3-13-10 We took a Queenstown city tour...this city is absolutely charming. Our hotel is beautiful and is located in the heart of the city. In the afternoon, some of us went on a jet boat ride around the lake...fabulous and exciting. The boat did 360 degree turns, which was right up my alley!
3/12/10 - off to Queenstown, New Zealand by coach. It was an amazing 10 hours of scenery. Much of the scenery looked like Wyoming and Montana..arid and ringed by mountains, but then the scenery quickly changed to the MOST beautiful. The lakes are all glacial lakes, so the water is the most heavenly blue,green and clear -- even more beautiful than the Carribean water color. Australia, NZ, and Antarctica were all part of the same land mass and broke apart into the three continents. We passed "braided lakes" -- lakes with glacial paths through them..lots of sheep, cows and deer (farmed here -- deer called "fallow" deer). NZ has no "natural" mammals even though the other two continents do have them. This is because NZ was underwater for 55 million years. It does have the Kiwi bird, which is the closest thing to a mammal. It is closer to a mammal than a bird..it has no wings (flightless), it's body temperature is closer to ours than a bird's, and it has two ovaries. NZ has 4.2 million people and 39 million sheep!
We were all overtaken when we saw the absolutely gorgeous place we are staying in. The hotel is in Queenstown...the most prestigious part of all New Zealand...where many of the movie stars,etc. come. I can certainly see why...it is set in the middle of the snow-capped mountains...is the most adventurous (all activities, i.e. hanggliding, jet boating, bungy jumping, skiiing, etc. are in this area. My room looks out over the gorgeous blue-green glacial lake, set between the mountains. I feel like I am in some kind of twilight zone!! Lord of the Rings, Last Samurai, Wolverine were all filmed in NZ. There is world champion hanggliding in Queenstown
3-11-10 This night I stayed with another tour couple at a delightful couple's home and had a home-cooked dinner. Bob and Phillipa Elliott - he was 71 and very active and she was about 62 and very active -- had been married only 7 years, both with children..he was from England and she was a born Kiwi, but had lived in Bankok and both had traveled all over the world. Their home was absolutely beautiful...on top of a hill with a panorama view of the ocean. My bedroom overlooked the garden, full with flowers and bougainvillia. Absolutely breathtaking. We all loved the experience very much. The home was near Port Lyttleton, which is a very prestigious area. She was a nurse and he was a sales rep for 5 companies...both retired now. All in all a great evening!
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