The Day That Went As Planned

Shortly after Angela and I had our little mudding cruise, we went to the airport to pick up the one and only Emily Stuart! Unfortunately, Emily's suitcase did not accompany her on her flight to Queenstown. (And didn't actually find her until 3 more days into her trip.... long story).  So after making some elaborate arrangements with the baggage claims department at the Queenstown airport, which involved post-it notes - which Emily did comment at the time as being a bit informal and non-reassuring [and was right!], we were off to the Mount Cook area. Some of you may remember that the Mount Cook area is always good for some unpredictable events, and this trip was no exception.  This post is dedicated to the day that went according to plan. We arrived there the evening after Emily's arrival. The following day, we had good weather and got to enjoy some of the great things this area has to offer. The next day was the exact opposite of that... we'll get to that later.

As for now, sit back and relax as I relay the hot springs, snow tubing, and stellar lake views we got to take in.

Much to our delight, we woke up to a beautiful day.
This was our hotel in Mount Cook Village:

Welcome to NZ, Em!

Since Em's hiking clothes were in her luggage, we opted to go check out the snow-tubing and hot springs place at Lake Tekapo! That involved a little bit of a roadtrip, which was fine on a nice sunny day.

Emily even felt brave enough to try driving here (left side of road, right side of car...), and the traffic-less roads in this area seemed like a good place to try it out:

Off we go!

This is how I feel inside the entire time someone is driving here for the first few times. I subtly clench the side of my seat as we make our way down the road.

And as fate would have it, the first vehicle Emily met happened to be an enormous bus, which created a certain level of panic, yelling, and laughter from our car.

But Emily's proper 10:00 and 2:00 technique and my background chanting of 'stay on the left, stay on the left' worked perfectly and we successfully breezed right by that bus and made our way to the end of Lake Pukaki for a quick photo stop before heading on the rest of the way to Lake Tekapo.

First order of business: Snow Tubing!!!

The arena!

Almost up!!!

You can go tandem or in other multiples if you get the proper ratio of hard vs soft bottomed tubes. And the guides up top will spin you if you ask. Some of them were better at this than others. You can also do a running take-off if you prefer. Allow me to demonstrate:

Or here's an example of a combination, spinning run with all three of us together:

So fun!!

We were supposed to get 1.5 hours out there, but they weren't busy at all, so they let us stay for much longer! Lucky for us, the stern employee (he may have been Russian) rotated away shortly after we got there and a couple of fun English dudes were posted out there, happily spinning everyone and letting us tube to our hearts' content.

When we finally had our fill, it was time to head down the hill to the hot pools where we could just soak the afternoon away and warm up.

Pretty inviting, eh?

Three different pools at different temperatures. 

yes, please.

and this is the view from the pools, by the way:

After we were thoroughly water-logged, it was time to go check out the lakefront and grab some food.

Picturesque church.

and who doesn't love a good jumping picture?

"It could fit....."

Beautiful.

And that was the day that went as planned! (aside from still not getting Em's luggage, even though we were promised it would have been there) Unfortunately our luck didn't hold, and we had to move to plans B, C, D, and E in the following days. More on that soon!

Afternoon in Queenspark

Living in little Otautau, our biggest neighbor is Invercargil.  When people say "I'm running to town," what they really mean is they are headed to Invercargil where there are lots bigger stores, a movie theater, and some other things to do.   One of the attractions (at least not in the winter time) is Queens park.  It is a huge park set aside for the locals to enjoy.  It is filled with many different trees, plants, flowers, duck ponds, and even a little zoo.  

One of our favorite spots in the park, just inside the gate is the large rose garden.  It was built up by various rose gardener clubs from around the region and has become a pretty nice display.

The rose garden has more types of roses than you can imagine.  Every other rose bush is a different kind throughout the whole area. 

We took dozens of pictures of the different roses, it's hard to pick just a few there were so many nice colors and different types...

Large red ones.  Sorry floriculturists out there, I did not write down the species from the little plaques.

I didn't really realize, but the roses have many different smells to match their varying colors, shapes and sizes.

Besides the flowers everything was very green.  Little foot paths, paved or beaten, cut through the park in all directions.

One of Rebecca's favorites...

One thing about all these flowers, you had to watch out for the bees at times.  The bees were very happy as you could imagine.

Not sure what these guys are.  They looked like hundreds of butterflies settling on the leaves.

A closer look...

A purple version...

The park has been around for over a hundred years.  Plenty of time for the trees to get huge.  There is actually a full golf course within the park, and this is mostly what the scenery was like for the course.  Very peaceful.

Off the rose garden was a little trail that went through a grove of gnarled trees.  They twisted and turned into a low canopy.  Birds liked to play in the fallen leaves, digging around for lunch.

A bronze statue sits in the middle of one of the path intersections.  Someone had placed a fresh flower in her hands no complement the bronze one she usually holds.  It sure brought her to life.

Down a bit further the ducks were out in force.  They were enjoying a nice pond under a stone walking bridge.  It was a popular place for people to bring their bread scraps and feed them.  Lots of happy ducks and happy kids feeding ducks.  There were LOTS of them.  Watch your step...

The view the other direction from the duck pond...

This little one was watching us suspiciously... He looked like he was hatching a diabolical plan...

Different types of plants and flowers in all directions...

Another colorful one for you....

Rebecca has had a serious shortage of dogs down here.  She worked with dogs at her last job and has been missing our dog Elsie at home, so anytime we see dogs she tries to play with them or at least watch them for a little while.  She saw this pair wandering around a giant tree.  They were to busy to be bothered that day though.

As we walked back to the main area of the park we noticed the pine cones growing right out of the side of the branches from the trees like little tumors. They did not grow at the ends of the branches but down the main trunk.  It was different...

Another shot of all the pine cones running up and down the long limbs...

Almost done with our day we headed to the center of the park where a large gazebo stood.

Lots of nice flower there too.  Would have been a nice place to hang out, but alas no benches..

We headed back down the long path the car AND...

...A wedding in the rose garden!   What a nice place to get married.  Good luck you crazy kids!

When we got back home we had a nice surprise waiting for us.  Our neighbor George had brought us a large bucket of broad beans from his garden.  He is always growing something over there for us.  :)

They grew in fuzzy pods, but the beans themselves were huge.  The bean was about the size of the end of your finger.  They were a lot of work.  You had to peel them, then sort of steam them, then a shell would come off of them, then you were left with the bean to eat.  We peeled the whole bucket and froze a bunch for winter.  We ate them several times.  Not bad.  I think they are mostly gone now.

Next up the many adventures of Monica and Cindy!