WUSD 10

[amethyst73]

Monday March 15
 

Queenstown is just stunning! We both love it here, and have to keep reminding ourselves that the winter here gets pretty darn cold so we wouldn't *actually* want to live here. But still. If you visit New Zealand, do yourself a huge favor and come to Queenstown.  (Do be careful about crossing the street when you come; there are very few pedestrian crossings marked on the street, no controlled intersections in the way we understand them, and drivers who generally do not yield to pedestrians waiting at the edge of the street.)

Exiting the lodge this morning, we were met by a different cat than the one we'd seen the night before. This was a long-haired beauty who clearly felt that we were its humans and thus had a sacred obligation to stay and pet it. Terrible humans that we are, we went on our way after only a couple of minutes.

After breakfast, we investigated the Million-Dollar Cruise. Contrary to its name, this 90-minute tour around the lake costs NZ$40 in the high season, and only NZ$25 (about US$18) in the shoulder season. The mahogany-interior boat starts off at the wharf by feeding the local trout that live in the lake. The fish.move far too quickly to get a decent photo, but they're lovely in their speed and their quick tail-splashes as they grab a tidbit and then dive down again. As the tour progressed, the captain gave a running commentary on Queenstown and the lake. Lake Wakatipu is incredibly pure - something around 99.99% pure, along the lines of distilled water. (He didn't specifically say so, but I think that you could therefore drink the water without having to do any more than pick the occasional bits of twigs out. The fact that astonished me most about the lake's purity s that it's so pure you could drop in an electric drill and use it on the lake floor, and it wouldn't short out - there are that few dissolved salts in the lake. As part of the tour we also got as close as the lake proper gets to The Remarkables. (Somewhat unsurprisingly, what used to be camping grounds right there have been bought by a hotel conglomerate and is being turned into no less than five luxury hotels.)

From New Zealand 2010

Other fun facts about the lake:
- You can see the bottom (and fish swimming around) in surprisingly deep water because the water is so pure
- One of the early settlers purchased some willow stakes to mark passages at the south end of the lake. The stakes contained enough live wood that they sprouted and turned into willow islands
- Houses built by the railway for its workers on the north side of the lake had, by requirement, their big living room windows on the north side of the house to maximize the amount of sunlight that came in during the winter. So, these houses have big windows looking onto the fairly steep bank; if the residents stand on their toilets to peek out their tiny bathroom windows, then they get to see the mountains and the lake!
- Gold was discovered in the river flowing into the lake in the late 1800s.  In a bid to make obtaining the gold easier, a dam was proposed to encourage the river to flow out of its bed, but the designers hadn't done a proper study of the river geography.  Turns out the river's really a series of pools - there's really nowhere else the river CAN go, and all that damming the river did was to temporarily block the flow.  Shortly after its construction, the river overflowed the dam and went back to its previous course.  Woops.

That afternoon, we did the very touristy Queenstown thing of riding the gondola.  It's a few minutes and NZ$23 to rise about a quarter mile above the town, with absolutely stunning views on the way up and at the top. 

From New Zealand 2010

(There's a trail one can hike up too, but the hillside is very steep and I was just starting to feel markedly better from my cold.) 

From New Zealand 2010

Near the top, one can take a bungy jump, go parasailing, ride the sky swing... We chose the relatively gentle pastimes of hiking the (relatively short) Summit Loop Trail, in which we learned that the Douglas Fir is rapidly taking over the mountainsides in the area and that Ben Lomond is a mountain in Queenstown as well as being a township in California

From New Zealand 2010

and the luge ride.  The luge is a wheeled bobsled-like affair that you ride down a track, enjoying the scenery (if you're an old fogey like me who uses her brakes a lot) and/or letting gravity propel your craft as fast as it may (if you're a speed demon).  It was fun; I'm glad I did it; I don't particularly see a need to do it again; I can see how some people would REALLY enjoy it and take multiple trips on the thing.  We took the gondola back down the hill after spending a total of a couple of hours up at the summit.

At dinner, we were both feeling the need for lots of fresh veggies again, and found a pseudo-Turkish place that served falafel with rice and several different salads.  It was VERY nice!