New Zealand 10 - Queenstown

We left Te Anau for the half-day drive to Queenstown. Of course, as slow as we drive (compared to the Kiwis) it was a little longer with all the stops for picture taking. Speaking of which, how would you like to live in this house below with this view?

We got into Queenstown and just walked around seeing the sights. The Queenstown Gardens has these wonderful lawn bowling greens. It's a little like bocci ball, except you are truly bowling. The Gardens were beautiful, with trees in bloom all over. As you can see in the picture below, the tulips were also in bloom.

Queenstown is located in this wonderful setting, surrounded by towering mountains. Every view is framed with these snow-capped mountains.

On the walk from our hotel to downtown, we walked by a rugby club, where there always seemed to be people playing. Hands down, rugby is the toughest sport we've seen. No pads, no helmets, no huddles to take breaks, no time-outs. Just two 40 minute halves of hard running and smashing into each other.

Queenstown in located on Lake Wakatipu, a huge lake. Go to Google Maps and search on "Queenstown, New Zealand" to see how big this lake is. There was a beautiful old boat (the S. S. Earnslaw) that took people on trips around the lake

And of course, it wouldn't be a New Zealand lake without an America's cup boat moored on it somewhere. This is an older boat that I never caught the name of.

Queenstown is pretty much heaven for extreme sports enthusiasts. If there's a new way to risk limb and life, it was probably discovered here. People here play hard, then they party hard afterwards. So if jet boating, bungy-jumping, extreme skiing, parachuting, hang gliding, etc. is not your thing, there's not a lot to do around this area. We were a lot more comfortable in the more wild areas of New Zealand.

But that's why they make chocolate and vanilla ice cream.