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| Another perfect day in New Zealand paradise. Driving north out of Queenstown along the lake to Glenorchy. Jawdropping beauty. |
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| We drive through Isengard to get to a hike to Lake Sylvan. As you can see, we had it all to ourselves. |
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| Mountains all around, reflected perfectly in the lake! |
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| The wide open expanses felt very much like western China. Everything felt BIG. |
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| Alas, this was our last day....and the sunset was perfect. The next day was a flight back up to Auckland and then onto Beijing! |
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| QUEENSTOWN!!! I actually climbed up the mountain from the lake to the gondola lookout! |
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| On the hike up there was a ropes course (Queenstown is the capital of adventure sports) and whimsical items along the trail! |
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| Lake Wakatipu is a "double dog-leg" lake." This is the middle East-West stretch. |
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| Queenstown proper and our campervan site! |
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| The kiwi bird exhibition was neat, but the best part about it for me was watching the birds dive underwater. Bird butt! |
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| Kiwi are nocturnal so they are housed in a dark house to simulate day time and night time in opposition to the real day time and night time. |
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| Bird Butt! |
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| They also have what is considered the closest species to an ancient dinosaur. |
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| BIRD BUTT!! |
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| One evening we drove over the mountains to Wanaka for an evening movie. Here's the sunset. Spectacular! Even locals were stopping on the side of the road to take photos! |
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| The Southern Alps and Sheep.....where else could we be BUT New Zealand. |
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| Cromwell, New Zealand's capital of pears and peaches! |
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| After driving all day, Carlos and I found a local hike through what used to be a gold mining site. |
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| Gold was first discovered here in the late 1800's. And this area stopped being mined in the 1930's. |
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| The landscape post-mining. I'm betting it wasn't so pretty at the time of mining. |
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| As we headed southwest from Christchurch, we entered what is purported to be the highlight of the South Island.....the southern Alps and the Otago region. |
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| Pull over to the side of the road....take a picture.... |
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| ....have some lunch. |
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| Lake Tekapo has an amazing hot springs. I took an afternoon soak that lasted three hours! |
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| Mt. John right above Lake Tekapo is home to an observatory. |
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| At night, we took a tour up (yes, it was cold that they gave us jackets) to see the stars. Southern Cross, the Jewelbox and an amazing look at Saturn and its rings. FYI, I didn't get to the picture in time, so that's my fist you see in the center rear. |
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| During the day, the observatory runs a cafe. |
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| Mt. Cook, the highest point in the southern Alps in the distance. |
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| Astronomy is HARD! |