Queenstown seemed like a pretty cool place. It's sits at one end of a huge windy lake. I'm not sure if the lake is a reservoir or natural. Unfortunately we were unable to take a look at Queenstown or do anything near it. We were exhausted by the time we got there. We ate, showered and went straight to bed. Up early the next day we had a 7 hour drive ahead of us. We had to catch a plane in Christchurch at 4:30 in the afternoon. It would would have been nice to see the town, but time was running out, and i also had wanted to go see Mt. Cook, the highest mountain in the country.
Really nice place to be a shepherd.
We'd gotten up early enough to take an hour and a half to make a detour that would take us to another dead end road, right in front of the mountain. Mt. Cook sits at the end of another lake, vivid blue like Peyto Lake in Canada or Cracker Lake in Montana. This one was definitely man made with canals splitting off to irrigate farmland. The mountain chain rises right up out of the plains, like the Tetons. The Remarkables, as they call them, are growing as fast as your fingernails, and that causes stress. We were told that the top 6o feet of Mt. Cook simply collapsed a few years back.
It was a pretty area, considerably different than the mountains farther south. We had no time to stay tough, and turned back around. After leaving the area we drove through some areas that were like the American West, particulary Idaho. We even passed some old gold mines that looked very western. Driving over just a few hills though and everything turned green and pastoral, and eventually flattened out.
Once again the airport experience was crazily relaxing and easy going. We arrived in Hamilton right on time, and finally got a decent rental car. A brand new 4 door automatic Camry. Man, it drove great compared to the other cars we'd had.
I'm pretty sure that this mountain was featured at the beginning of the second Lord of the Rings movie, filmed during winter.
The big lake that's next to Queenstown.
