Middle Earth

I've decided to hammer down and just do this. So here it is, New Zealand.

View from the plane

We stayed in Queenstown which is on the South Island. It was probably the most beautiful place I've ever been. Breathtaking views everywhere you went.

I don't mean to brag, but this was the view from our Villa we stayed in.

We could hear a small waterfall out back too but there was too much foliage to be able to see it. We settled in Sunday(?) afternoon and headed into the town to do some exploring/shopping.

Lake Wakatipu. Temperature Ranges from 46-50 year round. People were swimming in it...

Supper time rolled around and I honestly can't remember which meal we had that night but I think we ate at this nice place near the lake where I had a delicious pasta with Salmon in it. Dad was also enjoying the local "cuisine." The entire time he was in Australia and New Zealand he made sure to try all new beers each time he had one. This one was pretty awesome since it doesn't get anymore local than this.

We did a little more shopping and then, being pretty tired headed in for the night, but not before we found this amusing shirt that I must share with you...

Monday morning we got up early to board a bus headed for Milford Sound. The bus trip was about four hours, then we took a boat cruise through Milford Sound, then a four hour bus ride back. It was a really long day but so worth it. We were blessed with absolutely beautiful weather while we were there. It was a drought for them so we felt a little bad for enjoying it so much. On the way there we saw some beautiful sites like...

One of the main filming sites of The Hobbit *insert fangirl scream*

The main filming site for The Lord of the Rings was on the other side of a mountain :( So I didn't see that, this trip at least...

Just some beautiful scenery.

On our trip there the bus stopped a few places where there were good photo opportunities.

I'm going to go all nerdy and express how amazed I was at these mountains and valleys and how glaciers carved them into what they are today. Seriously something I cannot quite wrap my head around.

Like this valley for instance... All the work of a glacier.

I'm pretty proud of my camera for this one...

Actually I'm totally kidding. That picture is correctly shown like this...

One of our stops was at the Mirror Lakes.

Exhibit A :)

Exhibit B

I'll move on even though I do have 17 more pictures of this.

At one point during our trip the bus driver/tour guide saw a stop along the road, got really excited and pulled over quite quickly. Apparently this is one of the best views along the trip and the small area for parking is NEVER free for him to park the bus so normally he doesn't get to stop there. I am so glad he could this time around.

This just doesn't do this view justice.

It should be noted that there is in fact not a slope below where I'm standing. It drops off instantly. Mom and Dad were laughing at me because I pretty much ran up to the railing and the moment I got there and realized just how high it was I stopped very suddenly and looked horrified. It was quite phenomenal though.

Holy cow I'm not even halfway done and this is a really long post... it just might get split into two. I'll stop writing so much and just show you the pretty pictures...

Mount Christina

The ceiling of our bus :)

You can see my reflection in the window.

Next stop, the Chasm, which I only know how to describe as a stream that suddenly drops really far down into a pool, and then that pool drops really far down into another pool.

Stream

very steep drop

Pool

very steep drop #2 and pool #2

I was having mini panic attacks at how high up the bridges going over these pools were...

Then finally, Milford Sound!!!!

We got on a boat, and the boat went around the fjord (another wonderful phenomenon caused by glaciers) and we had some lunch on the boat and then we got off the boat. Here are some pictures from this experience.

There is one advantage to being here when there isn't a drought, apparently the waterfalls are amazing. This will just have to do for us :)

Fur Seals

Waterfall!!!! (you can see from the plants below this is normally a lot stronger of a waterfall.

We made it to the end of Milford Sound and turned around and the nice tour guide said "You should probably go get your family now for a picture." He was nice enough to take this for us.

Waterfall!!!!

Getting very close to the waterfall...

Getting wet from the waterfall...

The mountain the tour guide climbed and was nice enough to show me pictures from. The waterfall you just saw was just a tiny little spec in these pictures. It was kind of awesome. I would love to climb it some day

See the not green spot in the middle, not only are they lucky to experience falling rock and avalanches here, they also get tree avalanches. One falls and it's like dominoes for the rest.

Waterfall!!!

Then our trip at Milford sound was over, we got back on the bus and slept the first half of the trip, and watched a movie the second half.

Traffic Jam!!!!

 It was supper time when we got back and we were dying to try this place...

This is probably the LEAST busy crowd we saw our whole time there.

Fergburger.

So. Good. If you're ever in Queenstown, hit this place up!

PHEW!!! I'm going to end this one here. I will put Tuesday's adventure in another post once I have fully recovered from writing this one. Tuesday was kind of really awesome, so to all of my followers, since there's so many of you, you should probably be really excited for it.