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.

New Zealand: day 15 - Adrenaline and Glenorchy

I woke up with some nerves this morning.  Queenstown is often called the adrenaline capital of New Zealand, and it's the city where bungie jumping was invented!  So, of course, I had to do it.  S decided to stay home to not watch us do these things.  I started with a solo bungie jump.  I was nervous but excited throughout the process, and the staff's attention to safety and triple-checking really set me at ease.  Nevertheless, when I stood on the platform and looked down, I was the most scared I had ever been in my life.  I took a gulp and did it!

The jump it self was chaotic for me.  I had a hard time knowing which way was up and which way was down, and with nothing in my body successfully orienting me, my perception was just a mess of color until I slowed down enough to know what was going on.  The staff in the raft got me safely disengaged from the cord, and I met H on the track back up to the lodge.  She didn't want to jump, but she did the canyon swing with me:

 

After we recovered and squeed at our own bravery, we returned to the airbnb to meet S.  We collected our stuff, folded our laundry, and then headed out to Glenorchy.  I went yesterday with Glen, but S&H didn't.  We started out doing a hike near the jetty, but we bailed when we saw how packed with other tourists it was. So, we headed further out of town, towards Paradise.  We did a hike to Diamond Lake that was glorious.  Full of bird songs and beautiful nature and a vista at the end that made us all gasp.

The barbed wire won.

gasp

After that hike, we headed further into Mount Aspiring National Park, just a few km back to the mossy glen where I stopped yesterday with Glen.  We all three took photos and gasped at the beautiful mossy greenness.   I used my macro lens today for a close-up on the moss.

From there, we headed back to Queenstown, stopping off at Bennett's Bluff Lookout, where we got a stunning vista of the lake and the mountains.  

Then, back to Queenstown for takeout burgers.  Ferg's Burgers is a Queenstown institution, but we were very disappointed when we tried it.  The patties were overcooked, the dressings lacked flavor, and the whole meal would have been an acceptable pub burger in the states.  Nothing to write home about.  

Tonight's our last night in Queenstown.  Tomorrow we head SW!

New Zealand: day 14 - photo tour

A few family members who are also hobbyist photographers had recommended private photo tours with guides, and for years I had rejected them as uncompromisingly bougie. But, I did one this summer and really enjoyed it; not only the the photographer know where to go to find great shots, but they were also able to help provide some guidance/advice on photography - framing, camera operation details, etc. So since this trip was a bit of a splurge for us, I looked at finding a guide for one day.  I looked around for a few different guides and ended up booking a day with Glen Howey, a local photographer/guide.  Today was the the day!

I woke at 5am, ate a quick breakfast and met Glen in his Land Rover at 5.30 for our sunrise shoot.  He picked me up at our airbnb in Queenstown and we headed for Glenorchy, a hamlet about 45 minutes from Queenstown.  Our first stop was the small into the river.  The jetty and neighboring boat launch were both particularly crowded with fishermen (today was the biggest fishing competition of the year!), but we did okay working with the folks at the end of the dock to get some good shots.  

After shooting the jetty, we moved to the adjacent spit to catch light off the mountains and some partially-submerged trees.  For LOTR fans, these are the Misty Mountains.

This morning shoot chilled us to the bone, so we warmed up in a local coffee shop before heading further down the road in to Paradise.  Past Glenorchy, the road turns to gravel and we entered a national park.  Shortly after we entered the park, I started feeling a little queasy from the bumps, so Glen pulled over to let me catch my breath.  While we were paused, we shot a little in a mossy glen that was used in the LOTR films.

We continued further on to an abandoned truck on a working farm. The owners leave the truck there for photography crack.  

From there, Glen drove me back to the airbnb, where I met up with H & S for a lunch and wander.  We watched a street performer juggle swords while spinning a ball and doing a hula hoop, and we went up the Queenstown Gondola to see the city from a new perspective.

H tried very hard to attract a bird to share her lunch.

The gondola was kind of lame.   The one in Christchurch was much better - it had more hiking trails on the outside and was generally less full of garbage stuff.  

We picked up a lovely picnic dinner from Ferg's Bakery and returned to the airbnb to prep for the afternoon session with Glen.  He started by taking us into Skipper's Canyon, a deep canyon of rutted roads that provided a huge expanse of photographic opportunity. H & S came with me on the afternoon, and Glen did a great job keeping the experience engaging for both of them while also photographically interesting.  H focused on macro photography, S examined the flora and looked for birds, and I learned about light and monochrome filtering.

After about 10km of driving down the winding rutty road (stopping about 10 times for such places as 'Gorilla Head,' 'The Lighthouse,' 'Hell's Gate,' 'Heaven's Gate,' and 'this is just a really cool shot if you aren't afraid of heights,' we reached the end of the accessible trail and found a sunny perch high up in the canyon to eat our dinner and shoot the last light getting into the depths.  Glen made coffee, hot cocoa, and provided cookies. Then, we retraced our steps, stopping just a few times as we raced the sunset to our last stop.  Once we left the Skipper's Canyon, we headed up to the Coronet Peak Ski Area (which is still running its last days of the season) and found a great perch to catch the last night across the valley on The Remarkables Ski Area and then the post-sunset glow across the valley.  

From there, Glen returned S & H to the airbnb before joining me for a beer at a locals bar outside of the strip in Queenstown.  I bought the first round, he bought the second round, and we had a great conversation about politics, music, history, and culture.  Just a really lovely experience all around.  What a fun day - I got to see places I never would have seen on my own, and I definitely improved my photography because of it!

New Zealand: day 13 - Queenstown

I woke up on our first morning in Queenstown to find that S had moved overnight into H's room. Our bed is very soft and squishy, and she couldn't get comfortable. She slept in while H and I were on screens (H playing video games, me getting some work done).  I made a quick run to the grocery store for essentials and then hit the town by myself for an hour or two while H/S got cleaned up.  

The forecast for today was for spotty rain all day, and the wind was whipping off the lake.  Drops of rain fell on me as I walked around town, and fog covered the mountains most of the day.

I met H & S for brunch at a lovely cafe with a 25-minute wait.  The deluge of tourists is real!  Not only is this a spring holiday period for kiwis and aussies, but it's also a holiday week for China.  S read that Chinese tourism is up 40% over three weeks ago.  That explains why everything is packed and particularly with Chinese folk.  

After brunch did a bunch of shopping in town. Most of the shops are either kitschy tourist shops (Jade!  Postcards!  Wool!) or international brand names (Nike!  Calvin Klein!  Hoka!  Jellycat!).  There are some independent shops as well, but they tend to be high-end.  So, mostly we window-shopped, ducking in and out of storefronts as the rain clouds passed over head.  

Once the rain passed for good, we headed over to the botanical gardens for a walk.  

S has an app on her phone that lets her identify birds based on their look or their song.

This tui bird put on quite a show for us today!

Last night we had a hard time finding a decent meal without a long wait, so tonight we wisely booked a reservation at Sunfire, one of the restaurants that had come up as particularly delicious.  It didn't disappoint.  We split two mains and a few sides and had a delicious time!

Salmon taquitos.

Gnocchi with mushrooms, hazelnuts, and truffle foam.

Content ladies.

We came home to relax and plan out our next few days. I need to turn in early - tomorrow's an early morning for me!