Arrowtown/Queenstown

I'm going to "catch up and finish" the blog for New Zealand from home since the computer  broke on the trip. So.... here goes.We drove from Te Anau to Arrowtown in the middle of the southern alps. The drive was short (just a couple of hours) and we met Ann and Barry at the B&B in the afternoon.

The flat kids really liked the lawn and the house with the mountains in the  background. The gardens were beautiful and we had lots of room to play.






The next morning we drove over to Queenstown some 20 km away. Queenstown in located in the middle of the Southern Alps on lake Wakatipu. It's a college town with lots of energy and a quaint downtown. We took a gondola to the top of the ridge where we were greeted by this view.

During the gold rush of the 1860's Arrowtown and the surrounding area was a thriving community. In many ways the gold rush there parallels the California  gold rush some 10 years earlier. This is a steam ship that was used on the lake in the mid 1800s. There was no road to Queenstown so the people came by wagon to the South end of the lake and then by steam ship to Queenstown. This is the same ship that operated then and is still  taking folks today                                                            

                             

We walked the gardens in Queenstown and were rewarded with this view.

                                  One more view of the lake and that's it. I could spend all day inserting photos of this place. I managed to screw up the format on this one..... sorry.