Off to the Beautiful Queenstown...

I was off, bright and early, heading further down the west coast and then inland. The scenery continued to amaze - beautiful green mountains, rivers, waterfalls, orchards, vineyards and of course sheep! We stopped at an amazing fruit stand - the colors of the fruit were so vibrant. At one of our stops, I tried to get a photo of the stags, but they were a bit far away. We passed through the very popular Lake Wanaka and other towns that were once booming during the New Zealand gold rush. There is still some gold mining happening here. Rumor has it that a man was walking down by a local river and found a large gold nugget that sold for $50k on ebay! It was a very long bus ride, approximately 9 hours, to arrive at the town that is fit for a queen - Queenstown.

Queenstown is in Otago in the south-west of New Zealand's south island. It's built upon the beautiful Lake Wakatipu, has spectacular views of the surrounding mountains and it is a resort town - skiing in the winter and adventure/outdoor activities in the summer.

When I arrived, I took out my handy dandy street map and headed for the Hippo Lodge. Anja and I had made plans to meet in Queenstown and Hippo Lodge was going to be the accommodation. Well, my handy dandy street map was not a topographical map. The lovely Hippo Lodge, it turns out, was up an extremely steep hill. I thought my heart was going to come out of my chest lugging all my stuff up that hill! It was the first time I had to convert my bag into a backpack. I trudged up that hill like the little train that could..."I think I can, I think I can..."! All that work paid off with an incredible view.

There are hundreds of things to do in Queenstown, but my purpose was to use it as a base to see Milford Sound. I booked my tour to Milford Sound for the next day, headed down the hill and met up with Anja and her new friend, Michaela (I think that was her name). We went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant - well, a wanna be Mexican restaurant. The Mexican food here is not what we are used to. They had fake sombreros, like the ones at Chevy's, only these were more the shape of witches hats...Ay yi yi! I MISS our REAL tacos, burritos, enchiladas, huevos con chorizo, horchata...and the list goes on and on!