The morning of our last post, we did a short hike up to the top of a hill overlooking Lake Tekapo, which is also home to an observatory (remember that thing I said about clearest skies in the southern hemisphere?). The views from the observatory were amazing. The sun was out so the turquoise color of the lake really came out, and you could see the snow-capped mountains that surrounded the area. They also had some incredible pictures of the night sky that were taken using their telescopes. After enjoying the views for a while, we headed back down and made a stop at the Church of the Good Sheperd before leaving town. This is a beautiful little early 1900s church was built in memory of the pioneers of the area. It is situated right next to a lake and has an incredible view of the lake and mountains from the pews. Might be difficult to pay attention during a sermon with a view like that.
After leaving Tekapo, we had about 3 hours drive to the lake-side town of Wanaka. It's getting near the end of the ski season here, in fact they are just wrapping up the New Zealand winter games. They don't seem to have "ski villages" located at the base of the mountain like in the US, but towns like Wanaka and Queenstown are about a 20-45 minute drive from a couple mountains each. Either way, the town was packed with skiers and snowboarders relaxing and shopping after a day on the slopes. One of the more popular attractions in Wanaka is called "A Puzzling World", which has a big maze, all kinds of puzzles you can do, and a variety of illusions. It turned out to be really cool, especially this tilted room with illusions like a pool ball that seemed to roll uphill. Made you pretty dizzy though. It didn't help a headache that I had going, and by the end of the day I was feeling pretty sick, again. On account of that, we didn't really do much else besides sit in our room at the hostel and watch movies. By the next morning, though, I was feeling much better and ready to finally make it to Queenstown.
We were greeted in Queenstown with drizzling on and off rain, but that didn't really dampen our spirits. Despite its popularity, the size of the town really surprised us. The towns of Fernhill and Frankton strattle Queenstown on either side, and it really seems like on long city. Queenstown city center is right on the edge of Lake Wakatipu (notice a theme here with the lakes?) with The Remarkables mountain range running along the other side of the lake. I have to say that it really is prettier than I expected it to be. Most of the surrounding area that we had previously come through had mostly low-lying vegitation and few trees, but Queenstown has lots of trees and a large forest reserve on the hill above town. All the trees probably mean lots of rain, but I'll take it. We found a nice hotel room for cheaper than any private room in a hostel (didn't want to stay in a dorm room when I'm not feeling well), and we have a great view of the lake and mountains. During our 3 nights stay here its going to be almost entirely business. We need to find a house or apartment to rent and hopefully get some leads on jobs. There is an organic grocery store right in town, so maybe Steph's dream job of "cashier at an organic grocery store" will actually come true. Anyways, internet is expensive and we have some research to do. I'm going to finish with a new segment of the blog - Quirks of New Zealand. I've mentioned how Rice Krispies are called Rice Bubbles, but there are tons of other strange and quirky things that we've seen here, so I'll include one at the end of every blog.
Quirks of New Zealand #1
They are really into public service announcements here. There's "don't drink and drive", of course, but also "don't drink and fry"(in case you forget your cooking and burn your house down), "don't drive while sleepy", and a really creepy TV campaign about how intersections are dangerous. Good to know I guess.
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