Fourth Day in New Zealand - Queenstown Scenes

Well, actually the days are getting a little mixed up but here are some more scenes from around Queenstown. This is the TSS Earnslaw. It was was built in 1912 in Dunedin and was dismantled and shipped by rail to Queenstown where it has worked on Lake Wakatipu for the last 100 years. It has a coal fired steam boiler for propulsion.

It served the small farming communities around the lake for many years but today it is used for tourist excursions.

Here they are loading coal into the ship. I imagine there are people below decks shoveling coal just like the old days.

Margot and I did not take a cruise.

This guy and his co-pilot were paddling around the harbor.

It is amazing how clear the water is in Lake Wakatipu. New Zealand takes environmental issues pretty seriously. In this part of the country there seems to be no industry - only farming and tourism.

Margot liked the picture above and I liked this one so you get two clear water/duck pictures.

This is a statue of William Gilbert Rees. He and his family were the first European settlers in what became Queenstown. They arrived in 1861. A year later when gold was discovered he was paid 10,000 pounds for his property which became Queenstown.

One evening, Margot and I took the cable car up the mountain to have dinner, take pictures and for an organized star gazing outing.

This is a picture of the Earnslaw from the top of the mountain.

This picture is of Queenstown from the cable car on the way up.

We were treated to a beautiful sunset that evening.

This is a long exposure shot of the Remarkable Mountains and Queenstown at night.

No star pictures but it was a clear, moon-less night. You could see 3 galaxies with the naked eye - the Milky Way, Large Magellanic Cloud, and Small Magellanic Cloud. Pretty cool.

This is a another shot from the top of the mountain looking about 90 degrees way from the picture above.