Living in Australia has its perks; It's a vast country full of amazing places to visit and experience. As good as it is though, and as much as we love touring it, our travel bug has taken us to other places: Europe, UK and Asia among them. A place we'd never visited, however, was much closer to home and last year we decided to go.
We found New Zealand to be one of the most beautiful places we had ever visited and regretted immediately not going there much sooner. New Zealand is now one of our favourite destinations and is on the list of must return as many times as possible. Yes, we have a list called exactly that.
I thought I'd share a few images I took on and around Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown, on New Zealand's South Island, and I'll jot down a few notes as we go. I hope you enjoy the images.
Wakatipu is New Zealand's longest lake, just over 80 kilometres long. It is the third largest in the country and also very deep at some 380 metres at it's deepest point. I took this shot on our first day. I'll admit, we were gobsmacked...As seasoned travellers we have seen some amazing places but this was simply breathtaking. In the background you can see The Remarkables, popular for skiing and hiking.
This image was taken from Skyline which is a tourist destination accessed by gondola straight up the mountainside. It offers amazing views over Lake Wakatipu and Queenstown plus a downhill luge track, hiking, mountain biking and a very very nice restaurant. The star attraction is the views though, which are spectacular. Link to Skyline.
I'm sorry, one isn't enough! We were up at Skyline on our wedding anniversary which is also Faith's birthday so we ate at the restaurant, which is top-notch, after wandering around and exploring a little. It's difficult to tear one's eyes off the view and fortunately we didn't have to as we had a table right at the window overlooking the lake. G-dog worked it out perfectly!
There's a lot to do in and around Queenstown however for us we spent a lot of time walking...At every turn there's a new postcard-vista and at different times of the day the light can make something you saw in the morning look completely different. Here you can see a shot taken right at the edge of Lake Wakatipu with the sun low on the horizon. A good photographer would have slaughtered this shot, but me...Meh, it's ok I guess. You can see on the left, the last rays of the sun lighting up The Remarkables mountain range and adding some colour to the clouds. We had walked for a couple of hours around the lake and each step made us fall in love with it more.
So far we've been beside and over the lake...Now we're on it! I took this photo from the stern of the TSS Earnslaw, (1912). It's an Edwardian twin screw steamer and the only commercially operated coal-fired steamship still operating in the entire Southern Hemisphere. We climbed aboard for the chance to see the lake and mountains from a different perspective and were not disappointed. Steam ship is a nice way to travel, and we had plenty of things to look at along the way.
Here's a shot from the bow. No, Faith and I didn't do a Jack and Rose on the bow like in the movie Titanic, it was just too bloody cold! The cool thing about the ship is one can walk along a viewing platform and watch the crew shovelling coal, tending the engine and the actual steam engine working...It's hot down there, so is a popular place...It's noisy though!
Above you can see the bridge of the ship...It's pretty cool when they blow the steam whistle...White steam billows from it and the noise, well, it's very loud. On the right above you cans see the engine/boiler room with one of the crew twiddling some dials and stuff. This was a loud and hot place and I imagine that, back in the old days, before the viewing platform was opened up, it must have been a terrible place to work.
Here's the dock are where we boarded and disembarked TSS Earnslaw. It's a vibrant doc area surrounded by cafes, bars and restaurants offering foods from around the world. If you're in Queenstown and are looking for somewhere to eat...You'll find it here.
TSS Earnslaw does a round trip although for extra cost passengers can disembark at the other end and spend some time at Walter Peak High Country Farm (pictured), watch sheep sheering and other farmy-stuff and have some lunch too; It's supposed to be a decent lunch. It looked like a lovely spot, but we felt it would be very touristy (which it was - Packed solid) so we decided to do the round trip and enjoy a bite to eat in the cafe on the steam ship. (Great muffins, trust me!) The lunch cruise was $129NZD and the round trip was $70NZD per person.
This was the very first photo I took of Lake Wakatipu. I'd parked the car and walked down to the waters edge in disbelief about the colour of the water. It seemed to go through every hue from aqua to the deepest blue. I have a habit of tasting water wherever I go and can report that Lake Wakatipu water tastes pretty damned good, at least half as good as it looked.
It's impossible to go to Queenstown and avoid the lake. It is a central point and whilst it's just a simple body of water, the surrounding mountains and the blue skies seem to lend it a very special feel.
New Zealand is a beautiful place and in our time there we got to see much of it, and to fall in love with the place. We only travelled the South Island as that's the less-populated one with only 25% of the population living there, some one million people. We'll be back to see more of it though, an the North Island too.
I'll bring you some more images however for now I hope you enjoyed these few. Please remember that I'm not a photographer and I have very little skill in that area...Just a disclaimer in case you think my images are rubbish.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised.
All images snapped on my Samsung phone.
