Queenstown

Spending the next 10 days in Queenstown, the "jewel of the South Island" and one of our favorite places in New Zealand. The photo above is the view at sunset from our apartment overlooking lake Wakapitu. This whole area is just gorgeous, with tons of things to see and do. It stylizes itself as the adventure capital of the world and I wouldn't argue the point.

The weather has been cooperating so we've been doing a lot of walking. Here's a photo of Rita heading up the track near Arrowtown - a small gold rush town about 10 minutes from here.





Glenorchy


Took a side trip the other day to Glenorchy at the north end of the lake. It was a Lord of the Rings location tour, which we enjoyed very much. Not much to the charming little town as you can see from this photo of the library - hours are 2 to 3 PM on Fridays only...seriously.




The ride up was spectacular. The lake is the deepest in New Zealand and is really pretty on a sunny day.




According to local lore this was the Ent forest in the LOTR films, and this particular tree was Peter Jackson's inspiration for the face of Treebeard - the head Ent (and you thought we weren't into this stuff). Judge for yourself.



An altogether enjoyable day


In the Ent forest



This is a somewhat famous sign just outside of Glenorchy, heading up the valley towards the walking tracks. Guess this makes it official - this really is Paradise. Just wish the "No exit" part was true as well.