Eventually the day comes when one must do laundry. That day would be Saturday, February 20. Interesting, there isn't much of a crowd in the laundry at 7 AM. The people who do come in tend to walk in, open a washing machine and look inside, then walk out. I do not understand.
Our plan for the day - Queenstown. Added bonus? The road between Wanaka and Queenstown is the highest paved road in New Zealand. Woohoo! And, you probably will find this hard to believe - I mean - isn't just being high and paved enough? - but, no, there's more - it is scenic.
Queenstown is a big tourist mecca which for us meant we struggled to find parking. On the other hand, it was easy to find a reasonably priced lunch. Our Queenstown highlights:
Diving Ducks (Papango): For $5 you can enter the under water observatory and then, for only another $1, you can release food pellets. Trout, eels, and the New Zealand diving duck scramble to "eat them up, yum!".
The Gondola: Not the flat bottom boat or the passenger basket under a balloon, but the enclosed cabin suspected from an overhead cable. A beautiful trip up the mountain to get an overview of the Queenstown region, watch bungee jumpers, and ponder the toilet habits of the world. Here we learned a couple of useful things. If you decline the photo package (you and your party in the gondola!!!!), they will reduce the price and offer to break it up! (only the CD? only the postcards?) And, if you offer me only the postcards for $10, I'll buy them.
We enjoyed our walk up to the gondola but didn't go in to see the aviary or play miniature golf, though I've since been told it is phenomenal. We did drift through the cemetery and pause to pose for some photos for ourselves.
Our evening lodging was scheduled, so we had to leave in the mid-afternoon. Te Anau. The beautiful landscapes were made more so by remembering that we were still alive.
Te Anau - you have to love a place with a big blue chicken statue. This is the Takahe, once believed to be extinct - now, as we saw, to be very sleepy. They have a 20+++ year old female at the Te Anau Wildlife Centre. We visited her twice over the two evenings we spent in Te Anau. Two visits were necessary to feel like we were seeing a live bird.
2 comments:
Two nights in the same place, surely not!
Oh, no. But, I'm getting ahead of the story!
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