Queenstown (Again), Dunedin, and Tekapo

On Friday morning we woke up to a beautiful view in Te Anau, where we had stayed for the night. We really only stayed there because it was halfway between Milford and Queenstown, so we headed back to Queenstown first thing. We made our way slowly through the amazing scenery and stopped frequently to take more pictures. I finally got to drive! It was a little weird at first but you get used to it amazingly quickly. The thing that is actually easiest to forget is that the turn signal is by your right hand, instead of your left. So half the time when you go to turn you hit the windshield wiper instead of the signal and end up cursing loudly. It's very funny for everyone in the car.

On our way to Queenstown, we stopped at Deerpark Heights. This was originally a Lord of the Rings search for Kevin but it ended up being really cool in general. It is basically a big petting zoo. We got to see pigs, ducks, geese, deer... There was a huge buck about five feet from our car at one point. There was also a slightly frightening incident with a donkey. It tried to stick it's head in our window to get our food and then ended up trying to eat our car instead. Yum. We had a picnic with a great view at the top of the hill and then went on a trek to look for Lord of the Rings scenes. There was also a really creepy Korean prison that was from the set of the movie The Rescue, a Disney movie made in 1989. I'm going to have to watch that now.

After several hours in Deerpark Heights, we headed to the hostel. We got back in time for soup and watching the scenes from LOTR that we had seen at Deerpark Heights. There was a guy at the hostel who seemed to have no clue what Lord of the Rings was. He kept asking if this was the new version and that he hadn't seen this movie since the 70's. We told him that there is only one version of Lord of the Rings and it was filmed in 1999. It turns out he was confusing it with Star Trek. How to you mix those two up? They don't even look close to the same. So that was an interesting conversation.

In the evening, we met up with Chris and Lorissa, who had been hiking a mountain for the day. We decided to go out for dinner as a treat. We ended up going to a restaurant called Guilty, which is located in what used to be the courthouse. We split these gigantic platters of tapas, which are sort of like appetizers. It was pretty much a little bit of everything on the menu. Delicious.

We found out an interesting thing while in Queenstown. Apparently, it is illegal to sell alcohol on Good Friday or Easter Sunday in New Zealand unless it is with food (ex. wine with dinner). Interesting, huh? That meant that the city pretty much shut down that night because none of the clubs were open. It was strange. I'm not used to that.

We woke up early on Saturday because we knew we had a lot of driving to do and we were greeted by a magnificant sunrise. There were absolutely radiant colors. Oranges, reds, purples. It was fantastic. It made being up early that much easier. We headed out for Dunedin first thing. I got to drive again and ended up driving straight into downtown Dunedin. We didn't really expect Dunedin to be a big city. We thought it was just going to be another little town on the South Island. Really, even the bigger cities on the South Island still feel pretty small. But this was a city. And I had no idea where I was going. It was funny because everyone else in the car was just kind of looking around while I drove around, completely lost. I asked if we knew where we were going. No. Can we figure out? I don't really know. Could someone please look at a freakin' map and tell me where to go?

After finding a parking spot (a legal one, we almost parked in a bus stop), we walked around downtown for a bit. Apparently, there is a strong Scottish influence in Dunedin. Some of the buildings and churches are kind of Scottish-looking. Dunedin is also a bit more eclectic than Auckland in terms of the type of people there. We saw some people dressed in rather interesting outfits. We also conquered Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world. It's far steeper than it looks in the pictures. It is an average of something like a 1 in 3 grade. Very steep.

After that, we drove out almost to the tip of the Otago Peninsula to see penguins. We went to Penguin Place, which is a conservation project for yellow-eyed penguins. They are moulting right now, so they weren't as cute as they would usually be, but it was fun anyway. They're still adorable. When we were in the hospital area, we could hear them walking and on the concrete, it sounded like Happy Feet. Also in the hospital, they had another kind of penguin that was just visiting for a bit. I can't remember what the type of penguin is called but it Happy Feet, they are the penguins with Mexican accents. The rest of the conservation is on a sheep farm but they are slowly regrowing the forest that is the penguins natural habitat. You actually walk through a series of tunnels to spy on the penguins. It's to prevent people from disturbing them but I'm pretty sure they knew we were there.

Right after our penguin tour was a long drive to Tekapo. I was a bit bummed to leave Dunedin so quickly. I felt like I could have spent more time there. Oh, well. We didn't really know. It was four hours to Tekapo. I drove for two of them. I like driving on the left. Its fun.
Peace.