From Sydney we flew to Queenstown, NZ, on the South Island. Qtown reminds us of Colorado mountain towns – lots of winter and summer activity tourists (Think skiing, hiking, and biking), lots of temporary young workers from all over the world, lots of outdoor equipment and clothes stores. They also have a YUMMY Patagonia ice cream store.
We wandered around for a few days, did the laundry, took a boat ride across the lake, and found a very high tech toilet in the park:
• Button to open and close the door
• Message that I had 10 minutes to use the toilet.
• Music played.
• Autoflush and the sink water started running with soap and a dryer.
• Button to open the door.
The last night in town, I was all ready for bed when the fire alarm went off at 9:15; threw on clothes and evacuated using the steps from floor 5 to floor 3 which put us on the side of the hotel. We waited outside for about 30 minutes until the fire department cleared us to go back. When we went inside, Susan and a few other people waited for an elevator while Mark took the steps. However, the walkers couldn’t find the steps on floor 2 so they pushed the elevator button and made us wait on floor 1!!
From Queenstown we headed north to places we didn’t see 30 years ago on our first visit – Wanaka, Taupo, Franz Joseph, Blenheim. From there we flew across the water to the North Island for Palmerston, Hobbiton, Rotarua, Auckland. And the rain started to follow us.
We spent a few days in Franz Joseph catching up with laundry, diary, and watched the rain pour all day and night, hard at times! We actually drove 3 blocks to Snake Bite Brewery for a beer and chips on the patio watching wet people and people park in a “no parking” spot – long yellow dashes. The local police could make a mint in parking tickets. The Meteo still called for rain through Friday (We were in FJ on Sunday-Tuesday) along with flooding.
On Tuesday night the rain eased up a bit about 4 AM. At breakfast we learned that the road heading south between Fox Glacier and Haast is closed, as well as between Fox and Franz Joseph due to a bridge being covered by a landslide. We planned to head north, thank heavens! We started the drive at 9:08 AM in a bit of hard rain, driving through some standing water on the road.
The last 2 weeks were on the North Island. One question we get is “How’s the driving on the left in NZ?” I think Mark agrees that it’s not hard since there’s not much traffic until you get around Auckland. The worst part is that the MAJOR National Highway – HW 1 from one end of the North Island to the other is only 2 lane everywhere except Wellington and Auckland. This road carries all the truck traffic from the various ports. There are pull outs and passing lanes if people are so inclined to use them.
The “funnest” activity we did was visit Hobbiton, used making “Lord of the Rings”. Neither one of us has read the book nor seen the movie but the movie set visit was SO much fun! The props are amazing in detail. There’s even a 70% scale Hobbit house to visit.
We finally made it to Auckland after driving in the rain in road construction and dropping off the car at the Auckland airport. We visited the WETA Workshop studio special effects tour, The All Blacks Experience, The Auckland Art Gallery, ate yummy mussels and Indonesian food, did the laundry with the best dryer of the trip!
It was time to fly home on the Day that Never Ends.
- Wake up at Monday 8 AM NZ time; 1 PM SUNDAY SF time
- LWe landed at 7 AM Monday in SF – before we left NZ
Trip Summary: Fun train ride, great to visit friends; excellent scenery. We’ve decided that road trips where we stay only one or two days in one location are great in our 20’s but not our style any more when the trip is several months long. We like staying in one place longer – at least 3 or 4 days at a time. BUT if you’ve never been to OZ or NZ, put them on your list.