Queenstown

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For the past two weeks we have been staying in Queenstown with friends. We met Nik and Jane on our ill-fated flight to Auckland, and like most Kiwis they invited us to stop by if we passed through. These are people that we had talked to for about two hours, and when we showed up, they gave us a key to their house and encouraged us to make ourselves at home. I can’t get over the generosity of the people here. Nik is a helicopter pilot for one of the outfits in QT, and used us for ballast for a test flight.

Self portrait

 

 QT from the south

 

Nik

 

Jane wouldn't let me take her picture properly

 This is Pud Pud. She will only drink out of an Alaska pint glass, and will only eat her food if taken from her bowl and placed on a certain area of the carpet.

 View from our bedroom window

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 Our temporary accommodations

Queenstown is located on the shores of Lake Wakitipu, and is the ultimate tourist destination in NZ, especially for the young. There is a plethora of cheap accommodations for the backpacking ilk, and tons of places to get drunk and stupid. Kiwis don’t come here. It’s primarily a ski town, but there are a lot of things to do for people with more money than brains. Some of these include jet boat rides on raging rivers, sky diving, white water rafting, blah, blah, blah. The streets are packed with shops and Asians (even on xmas when everything is closed).

We were generously offered Nik and Jane’s place as a base of operations while we traveled about the countryside.

Queenstown by day (from the air)

 And by night

 The waterfront

 The Remarkables (mountain range) outside QT

 Now where did I leave my rifle?

Remarkables again

 

Self explanatory

I guess if you have to have a fresh Fagg, after dinner is as good a time as any...