Goodbye Queenstown

Finishing up breakfast at our B&B here in Queenstown before we head off to Auckland for our last night in NZ. Feeling a little sad to say goodbye, but it's been a good run.

Yesterday we took a bus tour to Fiordlands National Park at o-dark-early. This was followed by a cruise through the fjord of Milford Sound. Fjords are really cool, as it turns out. The whole area was cut from really hard rock by glaciers, so the resultant walls are tall and steep. On our way back we were supposed to fly a prop plane back, but the clouds prevented that, so we took a helicopter ride instead. That was fabulous fun! I've never ridden a helicopter before, so it was extra cool, especially when the earth just sank away from us. We even got to land on the snow covered peak of a mountain, which was wet, but super fun. Sadly it was extremely crowded, so I don't know if any of my pictures are any good.

The day before yesterday we had a very long drive from Paramata to Queenstown. We saw two glaciers and saw some amazing countryside. Our GPS also guided us through the steepest pass in NZ as a shortcut, so that was exciting. It was raining most of the day which was nice except for the hiking to the glaciers bit, but even then it was refreshing.

Now to finish packing, have a shower, then it's off to Auckland. I must get some sheep pictures before I go. I've seen a thousand fields with cute grazing sheep and not photographed one if them.