New Zealand: day 16 - Queenstown to Te Anau

Today was our last morning in Queenstown.  We woke up and checked out of our airbnb without incident.  After that, we had a few minutes to stop by a grocery store to pick up some supplies for the next few days.   Then, we headed to Shotover Jet Boats for one last adrenaline rush!  There are a few companies that run jet boat excursions in Queenstown, but Shotover is the gold standard.  They actually had Prince Harry and Kate on their boat back in '14!  Our pilot Matt knew his way around the Shotover River, in and out of the deep canyons, steering the boat inches from the rock walls, and doing massive 360 spins that we all squealed for.  We had all packed dry clothes in case we needed it, but none of us got soaked - we just got splashed a bit (and had an amazing time).

There were four boats on the river at a time, and the pilots were in communication constantly.

current favorite photo of H

After the jet boat, we got back in the car and hightailed it out of Queenstown.  Our destination was Te Anau, a small resort city 2 hours away.  We stopped a few times to break up the drive, including at this natural reserve which is more or less what scientists think the landscape looked like thousands of years ago.

What looks like sand on the footpath in the photo above is actually a sand-colored moss!  Or lichen?  Whatever.  It's not sand.

We rolled into Te Anau in the late afternoon of a simply glorious day.  We took a walk along the lake to a local bird sanctuary.

We had high hopes for it, but there were just a few birds that were visible, including the rare takahē.  They were all in cages that felt pretty prison-like to me.  

The whole sanctuary is under new management, so things are in transition.  I'm not sure if that's good or bad long-term, but short term, the whole place felt under-supported.  Cages were in poor condition, dividers were made out of plywood, and many of the enclosures were just empty.

Walk this way to the birds that are no longer here.

We had dinner in an American Western-Themed restaurant (photos of John Wayne EVERYWHERE); S and I each had tasty salads, and H had a plate of nachos (she liked them, but they are vastly inferior to every nachos option in the US).  However, the real reason we went to this restaurant was b/c they had pavlova on the menu for a dessert.  H and I had been looking forward to trying a good NZ pavlova, but we hadn't seen it on a menu once this whole trip!  I'm not sure if the ubiquity was overstated or if we were eating at tourist-focused restaurants that thought pavlova too prosaic for international travelers.  This dessert was delicious - a light meringue covered in a passionfruit sauce with a little bit of ice cream.  Worth the wait.

After dinner, we took a drive up to a look-out that I might return to for sunrise photos in a few days.  We got a bright sunset on the windy ridge.

We're now settling into our lovely accommodations at Fjordland Lakeview Motel & Apartments.  After being crammed into a small condo in Queenstown, it's nice to have a little more space to spread out.