The many views of Queenstown

Thought we should provide a sampling (however small) of the views of Queenstown while we were there. Most pics were taken in the afternoon or evening after we had played outside all day and were enjoying some vino and the forgotten joys of chairs :)

Queenstown feels like Jackson Hole (for those of you who've been there) or probably any of the cool US mountain towns. Its pretty laid back, pretty much alot of folks coming to enjoy the outdoors and nightlife and do some expensive shopping (Lana restrained herself fairly well).

Our house was close enough to walk into town, so we enjoyed the bars several times. The most fun night probably was a DJ/reggae night at a local bar. The rastafarians (sp) turned out strong and the main event was a 50 ish hippie with dreads down to his feet (no kidding) who rapped and sang for a little more than an hour - pretty high energy set for a slightly older gentleman.

If NZ has a music genre to define it, it has to be reggae. BTW - the best by far name of a reggae band we've heard so far is "Katchafire" - we'll see them soon and report on the tunes.

Of course, Queenstown is only the base for probably to best scenery and outdoors fun in the whole of NZ, so we'll get everyone some blogs of the adventures we had while down there. Suffice it to say that you could spend an entire summer in Queenstown and still not be satisfied, but it sure would be fun to try :)

More to follow . . .

Drive to Queenstown aka The Adventure Capital of the World

We left our house sit in Blenheim on December 1st and traveled down to Christchurch by a bus to purchase a car. It was about a 5 hour bus trip and we couldn't wait to get off especially because the guy in front of us began hurling his brains out just as we got into town.

We are now the proud owners of a 1998 Honda Accord! While we were in Blenheim we met a lot of really nice people and at Thanksgiving we met a really lovely lady and her son (She is actually from New Mexico) and her husband was kind enough to put us up in Christchurch for the night (he is living there temporarily while going to university to become a landscape architect so he can ditch his old job as a farmer - amazing mid-life decision!).

The next day we headed down to Queenstown to stay at a house Charles found for us. The home was absolutely gorgeous, it was set up in the mountain side and our front door opened up to a view of the mountains, lake and town below. [Most of the pictures of Queenstown were taken from our front porch - there will be a whole lot more to come of those . . .]

Anyway, the drive South took us over and around the Southern Alps which were beautiful; not to mention the mountain lakes we saw which are so clear the water took on an electric blue tint! Had to stop by one and have lunch and a beer :)

Sorry for the long delay on the blog, but we will keep them coming to keep you guys warm in the winter :)

Love to all,

Lana and Charles

Nelson Lakes

Hi Everyone, so sorry we have fallen behind. We have done a ton of traveling throughout the South island and have had very limited access to the internet. Before we left our last house sit in Blenheim we made one last camping/hiking trip to Nelson Lakes National Park. This park has two lakes hidden between some beautiful mountains. We hiked around one side of the lake and camped out for the night. It was a beautiful trip with the exception of sandflies. We need to work on finding a more powerful bug spray. :)

More pics to come asap - hope everyone is preparing for a wonderful holiday! We get to have our first Christmas in summer . .. not that NC is very cold these past few years, but beers on the beach might be a good substitute for a white Christmas. We'll report later . ..

Be in touch soon

The World-Famous Abel Tasman National Park

Hello all,

We just made an overnight hiking/camping trip to the Abel Tasman, which is reknowned for its crystal waters, secluded bays and golden beaches - and, as you can see, it did not disappoint!

We hiked into the last leg of a 3-4 hike through the entire park and camped near the cabin shown in the pictures. The cabin is a converted old farm house and its really rustic, but surprisingly nice and clean inside.

NZ tracks all have cabins along the route at usual stopping points so that you don't have to carry your tent if you want to travel light. We have not stayed at a cabin yet, but will try that out in the future and report.

The Abel Tasman track is almost entirely on or near the coast of the Tasman Sea, so we passed through alot of beautiful, golden beaches and camped very close to one of them - park rules prohibit beach camping and we'll test out how strictly those rules are enforced at a later date :)

Definitely going back there, except on a kayak camping trip - kayaks are supposed to be the best way to explore all the wonderful bays and beaches - plus kayaks make it easier to carry wine and beer! That stuff is heavy in a backpack :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Queen Charlotte Track - Marlborough Sounds

Hi everyone,

We just hiked for a couple of days (and camped out one night) on the Queen Charlotte Track which overlooks the Marlborough Sounds. Most of the postcards you seen of New Zealand have pictures of the area around the Queen Charlotte Track, so you can imagine that it is an amazing area and the views are incredible. For those of you requiring some aid to your imagination, pics are attached :)



The track skirts the ridgeline in most places and tops the hills in others - most of the time, we were around a quarter of a mile up from the sea so that is why the views are so high above the water. Our camp was just below the ridge on a mountain overlooking the sounds and two harbors (you can make out the town lights in at least one of the pics). The views were awesome and the weather very nice - until around 9pm when it decided to start raining. The rain had hints of a hurricane and touches of a tornado at times throughout the night - it didn't stop raining and blowing until around 10am the next morning - so very glad the tent doesn't leak!



There was one other hiker sharing our campspot - a young hydrological engineer from Berlin. This guy took off work for a month to hike around and all over New Zealand! Evidently, foks from Europe do that sort of thing all the time - they chill pretty hard over there.



Anyway, despite the nasty weather that night, all the rain actually made the track look pretty incredible. Alot of the trees and flowers look very tropical and all the rain dripping off of everything just seemed to be appropriate.



Stay tuned - we're headed to the world-famous Abel Tasman national park in a couple of days. The Abel Tasman is supposed to have some of the most beautiful secluded bays and beaches in the world, so we are very excited!!

Talk to you all soon!

Shamu!!!!

Sorry we are a little behind on our blogging. Last week we went to do a little whale watching in Kaikoura a town about an hour and a half south of us. They took us out on a two and a half hour boat trip where they used sonar to follow the whales, determine their location and when they will rise to the surface. They say usually a whale is down anywhere from 40-60 minutes and then comes up for air 6-8 minutes so as soon as they reach the surface it is a hustle to get out to them. We had three encounters with sperm whales and one humpback. After we saw the last whale it was time to head back into land. On our way back in we ran into a pod of around 500 dolphins! It was the coolest thing ever.....they were all dancing around and doing repeated flips in the air. They loved the boat and came right up to it and jumped all over the place. It was absolutely incredible. What a wonderful afternoon, hope you enjoy the pictures.

And on the 4th day, they took home silver in a Picton, NZ Regatta

Lana and I were unexpectedly invited to sail in a Picton, NZ regatta on Sunday! Our host took us up the road to meet our closest neighbor and, after we exchanged hellos, Jeremy noticed our look of weathered old salty sailors and promptly invited us to hop on his sailboat as his secret Atlantic Ocean weapons.

Needless to say, there is a reason the Kiwis and Aussies are known as really good sailors - the weather in the Marlborough Sounds is challenging (Taylor would call the wind "honking" and it swirled around a lot). [See pics] As you can see, the Sound is closed in by some pretty high hills, so the air is kinda funneled through there creating strong winds. The islands that dot the Sound also block and channel the wind so that you have to be ready for strong gusts and dead spots - all in all, a really exciting place to sail.

It was not a perfect day weather-wise, but we had tons of fun and ended up taking 2nd place out of about 15 boats. We actually beat the hell out of everybody all 3 races (so all our pics are taken when we are waiting for everyone to finish), but were working against a handicap and were edged out by a couple of seconds after taking that into account.

We'll see if we can't take the gold next time. Love to all...