Being in the southern hemisphere, it becomes colder as you travel further south. In fact, while the North Island is sub-tropical in weather, the South Island is rather cold and chilly from the Antarctic air. The time we stayed there, other than a few days, it was either mostly cloudy or raining. Of the top '101 Kiwi things to do' in New Zealand, many of them were located in the South Island; so we wanted to cover the south side as thoroughly as possible.
After a night in Christchurch, we started to drive again, this time towards south. Our next lodging was in Queenstown and this is a glacial lake we passed to get there. The turquoise colored water looked a lot like that of Lake Louise in Banff, Canada.
This is the glacier in Mt. Cook. I didn’t know that Sir Hilary, the first (European) person to climb to the top of the Mt. Everest, was a New Zealander. We were told that he did many practice climbs here before tackling Mt. Everest.
Just before entering Queenstown, there was a bridge where the first commercial bungy jumping got started. You might say it was the home of bungy jumping. When we got there, thankfully, the place was closed. I didn’t have to worry about whether to take the jump or not, since I am not too fond of heights.
This is the view from the top of the bridge, before taking the jump. I wouldn’t want to be standing there tied up on my ankles and looking down at this view; let alone jump.
Queenstown is a beautiful town with many attractions. We took a gondola (cable car) ride to the top of the mountain and had the view of the entire town. An Australian couple, that we met when we were at the Carrington, recommended that we play at Jack's Point (they were on a New Zealand golf tour and told us not to miss this beautiful golf course which had just barely opened). The golf course is located right above my head in the far side of the town.
Given some time in the morning before the golf, we decided to drive along the lake from Queenstown to a place called Glenorchy (Paradise Point is located right next to this town). This was the view from the road that we enjoyed during our drive to Glenorchy.
Glenorchy was such a small town. It must have had a total of no more than 100 houses. One of them was the smallest town library that we have ever seen. It looked to be the size of a closet, but had its own lawn and fence. Joanne and I talked about the innumerable library trips we had made with our kids, when they were little. Since each child used to check out one large paper-grocery bagful of books each week, they would have finished reading all of the books in this small library in a matter of weeks.
Instead of trekking thru the mountains of wilderness behind the golf course, as adventure tours do, we chose to drive around in golf carts on flatter terrains below. This golf course must have been owned by another person with deep pockets, because again, we were about the only ones on the course.
Hugging both the lake and the mountains, the course was picturesque. We would have been glad to play at any course but this was a treat. Joanne even drove the green on a par four hole and just barely missed the eagle putt.
As the weather forecaster said, it started to rain the next day which meant it was a perfect day to visit local museums and go for some wine tasting. New Zealand is a fairly new country. During the gold rush in this part of the world, in the middle of 19th century, people came from Europe, America, and even from China.
In a place called Arrowtown, there were replicas of shanty houses where Chinese miners stayed during that time. Unlike the Europeans, most of Chinese packed up and left for homeland when the mines dried out.
Unlike the Europeans, the Chinese were not allowed to collect on Australian’s form of social security when they got older. The New Zealand government, only recently, officially apologized to the Chinese for the discriminations they suffered. They re-built this on the site where the Chinese miners stayed to commemorate the contributions they made.
We visited a local winery and had a wonderful lunch at Gibeston Valley Vineyard and Restaurant. Afterwards, we went for wine tasting inside a cave where they store many barrels of wine.
After Queenstown we drove to Te Anau, the gateway to the Fiordland National Park. I had to constantly remind myself to drive on the left side. There were several times when Joanne pointed out that I was about to turn into the wrong side of the road. Even with our navigation system, somehow we ended up on the “Wong Way”. At least at a nearby restaurant, we had the cheapest and juiciest porterhouse steak for dinner.
Milford Sound is on top of the list of 101 things to do in New Zealand and is considered by some to be the 8th natural wonder of the world. We got on a cruise boat, but the drive itself to the town of Milford where we boarded, was even more memorable.
The captain of our cruise boat said that we were lucky that it was raining because we got the extra bonus of seeing more than a hundred water falls that only show up when it's raining – usually there are only three or four.
This place is called the ‘Chasm”, and it is not too far from Milford Sound. It is claimed to be one of the wettest spots on earth. We walked on the trail, which were full of trees that were covered with moss and algae.
At the end of the trail was a deep gorge with water gushing down. It was unusual to see a glacier right next to a tropical rain forest, all in one sight.
One of the many scenes of sheep, dotting the picturesque pasture land in New Zealand.
We were told that only one out of 6000 sheep are born black. We saw three “black sheep” out of the tens of thousands of sheep we must have seen in New Zealand. On our long drives, we were looking for black sheep to amuse ourselves. We were lucky to capture a photo of one of these rare ones up close.
On our coastal drive from Christchurch to Nelson, we spotted this trailer along side the road and stopped for lunch.
We had the freshly caught crawfish (local lobster) and mussels that were delicious, but more than anything, the view from the inside was priceless.
The last stop before we got to Christchurch and flying out of New Zealand was this place called the Pancake Rocks. The views all along the coastal route, reminded us of a mixture of driving along the coasts of California and Hawaii. Joanne and I agreed that New Zealand was like California, Hawaii, Colorado, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and Alaska all rolled into a single country. We couldn’t get enough of New Zealand; it was beautiful, friendly, easy to rent a car and drive ourselves, and inexpensive to boot. We told ourselves we wouldn’t mind coming back for more.
After a night in Christchurch, we started to drive again, this time towards south. Our next lodging was in Queenstown and this is a glacial lake we passed to get there. The turquoise colored water looked a lot like that of Lake Louise in Banff, Canada.
This is the glacier in Mt. Cook. I didn’t know that Sir Hilary, the first (European) person to climb to the top of the Mt. Everest, was a New Zealander. We were told that he did many practice climbs here before tackling Mt. Everest.
Just before entering Queenstown, there was a bridge where the first commercial bungy jumping got started. You might say it was the home of bungy jumping. When we got there, thankfully, the place was closed. I didn’t have to worry about whether to take the jump or not, since I am not too fond of heights.
This is the view from the top of the bridge, before taking the jump. I wouldn’t want to be standing there tied up on my ankles and looking down at this view; let alone jump.
Queenstown is a beautiful town with many attractions. We took a gondola (cable car) ride to the top of the mountain and had the view of the entire town. An Australian couple, that we met when we were at the Carrington, recommended that we play at Jack's Point (they were on a New Zealand golf tour and told us not to miss this beautiful golf course which had just barely opened). The golf course is located right above my head in the far side of the town.
Given some time in the morning before the golf, we decided to drive along the lake from Queenstown to a place called Glenorchy (Paradise Point is located right next to this town). This was the view from the road that we enjoyed during our drive to Glenorchy.
Glenorchy was such a small town. It must have had a total of no more than 100 houses. One of them was the smallest town library that we have ever seen. It looked to be the size of a closet, but had its own lawn and fence. Joanne and I talked about the innumerable library trips we had made with our kids, when they were little. Since each child used to check out one large paper-grocery bagful of books each week, they would have finished reading all of the books in this small library in a matter of weeks.
Instead of trekking thru the mountains of wilderness behind the golf course, as adventure tours do, we chose to drive around in golf carts on flatter terrains below. This golf course must have been owned by another person with deep pockets, because again, we were about the only ones on the course.
Hugging both the lake and the mountains, the course was picturesque. We would have been glad to play at any course but this was a treat. Joanne even drove the green on a par four hole and just barely missed the eagle putt.
As the weather forecaster said, it started to rain the next day which meant it was a perfect day to visit local museums and go for some wine tasting. New Zealand is a fairly new country. During the gold rush in this part of the world, in the middle of 19th century, people came from Europe, America, and even from China.
In a place called Arrowtown, there were replicas of shanty houses where Chinese miners stayed during that time. Unlike the Europeans, most of Chinese packed up and left for homeland when the mines dried out.
Unlike the Europeans, the Chinese were not allowed to collect on Australian’s form of social security when they got older. The New Zealand government, only recently, officially apologized to the Chinese for the discriminations they suffered. They re-built this on the site where the Chinese miners stayed to commemorate the contributions they made.
We visited a local winery and had a wonderful lunch at Gibeston Valley Vineyard and Restaurant. Afterwards, we went for wine tasting inside a cave where they store many barrels of wine.
After Queenstown we drove to Te Anau, the gateway to the Fiordland National Park. I had to constantly remind myself to drive on the left side. There were several times when Joanne pointed out that I was about to turn into the wrong side of the road. Even with our navigation system, somehow we ended up on the “Wong Way”. At least at a nearby restaurant, we had the cheapest and juiciest porterhouse steak for dinner.
Milford Sound is on top of the list of 101 things to do in New Zealand and is considered by some to be the 8th natural wonder of the world. We got on a cruise boat, but the drive itself to the town of Milford where we boarded, was even more memorable.
The captain of our cruise boat said that we were lucky that it was raining because we got the extra bonus of seeing more than a hundred water falls that only show up when it's raining – usually there are only three or four.
This place is called the ‘Chasm”, and it is not too far from Milford Sound. It is claimed to be one of the wettest spots on earth. We walked on the trail, which were full of trees that were covered with moss and algae.
At the end of the trail was a deep gorge with water gushing down. It was unusual to see a glacier right next to a tropical rain forest, all in one sight.
One of the many scenes of sheep, dotting the picturesque pasture land in New Zealand.
We were told that only one out of 6000 sheep are born black. We saw three “black sheep” out of the tens of thousands of sheep we must have seen in New Zealand. On our long drives, we were looking for black sheep to amuse ourselves. We were lucky to capture a photo of one of these rare ones up close.
On our coastal drive from Christchurch to Nelson, we spotted this trailer along side the road and stopped for lunch.
We had the freshly caught crawfish (local lobster) and mussels that were delicious, but more than anything, the view from the inside was priceless. 
The last stop before we got to Christchurch and flying out of New Zealand was this place called the Pancake Rocks. The views all along the coastal route, reminded us of a mixture of driving along the coasts of California and Hawaii. Joanne and I agreed that New Zealand was like California, Hawaii, Colorado, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and Alaska all rolled into a single country. We couldn’t get enough of New Zealand; it was beautiful, friendly, easy to rent a car and drive ourselves, and inexpensive to boot. We told ourselves we wouldn’t mind coming back for more.
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