QUEENSTOWN

After the natural beauty and splendour of Milford Sound it had to be a visit to one of New Zealand's most popular and commercialised year-round resorts: Queenstown!

Getting There:
The area we were driving through is a lake district, with one magnificent, and largely deserted, lake after another, skirted by hills and mountains.

Queenstown:
Queenstown proved to be another beautiful place, set beside the deep-blue Lake Wakatipu and hemmed in by craggy mountains. It's another old gold-rush town though little remains to see of that today.
The night before we arrived the town had been full to overflowing with crowds flocking to a concert by Credence Clearwater Revival. (They must be pretty old by now!!) We misssed them but were in time to catch the local bands who were performing at the harbour in aid of Christchurch survivors.

We strolled around the harbour....

.....before boarding the TSS Earnslaw, the last of the lake's steamers, for a cruise around the lake.

The coal-fired steamer was launched in 1912, before the lakeside roads were built, and has been lovingly restored.
The skipper is a busy man as you can see from this picture: steering the boat as well as delivering a commentary. We immediately had memories of our coach driver in Rotorua who drove the bus, gave a commentary and organised communal singing! At least the skipper had no roundabout to circle 6 times as we sang 'She'll be coming round the mountain'!!

The smoke from the funnel is testimony to the coal-fired engine you can see inside.

The cruise gives fine views of the Remarkables.....

........but we have to admit that they paled somewhat after the sights we'd seen on Milford Sound the previous day. We were suffering from a bout of  'Beautiful Scenery Overload'.
The half-way point of the journey was marked by a stop at Walter Peak High Country Farm to pick up some passengers who'd chosen to be left there earlier to spend the afternoon.

Edith Cavell's Bridge:
A short way out of town this bridge built in 1862 spans a gorge on the Shotover river. It is an informal memorial to Edith Cavell, a British nurse killed by the Germans in 1915. A local Queenstown miner, Jack Clark, suggested the bridge as a memorial but the idea was turned down so he painted the name on the bridge anyway. By the time the paint had worn off the name had stuck in the locality.
If we'd been there at the right time we would have been able to see the Shotover Jet (the most popular commercial jetboat in Queenstown) performing its antics of 360-degree turns and perilously close shaves with rocks and canyon walls. But all was serenely calm when we visited.

A view over the old bridge, now prohibited for vehicles....

...and the modern bridge which replaced it.

Lake Hayes:
The beautiful lakes just keep coming in this part of the world.

And to cap it all we saw a number 12, double-decker red bus! Sue has fond memories of walking past the number 12 bus terminus at the 'Junction' pub in Harlesden every morning as she walked to school at the Convent.