NZ08 Days 1 & 2: Christchurch - Mt Cook - Queenstown
We left home at a bright and early six in the morning on Thursday for our flight to Christchurch. Due to the accumulating rain, we didn't get to see much of Brisbane as we took off, but the clouds over the Tasman Sea were pretty and fluffy. And then we reached New Zealand.



And we crossed the Southern Alps.



And reached the Canterbury Plains, which stretch from the mountains to the Pacific, where Christchurch is. There are a few farms on the plains.

We got to Christchurch in the late afternoon, walked around the city centre for a little while, and saw the Cathedral. We didn't go into the cathedral then, we saved it until we got back to Christchurch at the end of the trip.



We got up early again the next morning to start our bus trip for the day - Christchurch to Queenstown, with a detour to Mount Cook. The first part of the trip, of course, was crossing the plains.



It was fascinating to watch all the farms go by, and constantly seeing the mountains in the background. Many of the mountains had a bit of snow on top, and we were getting closer and closer to them.



There were several of these interesting braided rivers along the way. When the water level is like this, the rivers are just several streams interweaving through a single bigger riverbed. Most of them didn't have as many plants growing in the riverbed as this one did. When there's more water than usual, the streams turn into one big river that fills the bed. We saw them like this later on... but I'm getting ahead of myself.



As we all know, New Zealand is primarily populated by sheep. Here are some of them, with the mountains rather closer than before. Note the little lambs! We went to NZ at just the right time of year, really. So many lambs! Calves, too. And when I get to the later days when we're back in Christchurch, you'll probably see more ducklings than you really want to. I did have a lot of fun watching the lambs as we drove past all the sheep. There may well be nothing more inherently adorable in all the world than a lamb.



Of course, there is a monument to sheepdogs. It's near the Church of the Good Shepherd, overlooking Lake Tekapo.



This is lake Tekapo.



Nice, isn't it? The amazing spiky flowers are lupins. They were everywhere. Let's look at the lake some more.



The picture on the left shows the colours better, and the one on the right is looking out the other direction (plus it has my dad in it).



The Church of the Good Shepherd overlooks the lake. It has one of the best views in the world, I think. The main window of the church is just clear glass looking over the lake. A wedding had just finished when we got there, hence all the people taking pictures on the left. It's a pretty little church.

On to the next lake.



I can't remember the name of this one, but there is something special about it (aside from it's prettiness):



See the mountain in the centre? The tall, pointy one? That's Mount Cook. The tallest mountain in Australasia.



It is a rather nice lake. Mt Cook is on the left here.



No, I'm not showing this to you just because of the sheep. See the little white bit poking out between the bottoms of two mountains? That's the Tasman Glacier. We didn't go any closer to it than this, we were just passing by on our way to Mount Cook.



We went to a place called the Hermitage to have lunch and get a better view of Mount Cook. The problem with these bus tours is that we didn't get much time in any one place - this was the closest to Mount Cook we got.

Then we turned around, and started heading to Queenstown.



Gratuitous sheep picture!



For those not as into sheep - this is the bridge that the first commercial bungee jumping was off of. I don't care much for bungee jumping, but it's a nice bridge.

We arrived in Queenstown at dinnertime, and went for a bit of a walk around. Queenstown is on a massive lake, with arms and legs poking out of it every which way - there's a legend about it's formation to do with a sleeping (or possibly dead - I can't remember) giant.



Looking back Eastwards from Queenstown over to the Remarkables. The Remarkables mountain range is named such because it is aligned due North-South. It's a pretty dramatic mountain range.

I didn't get any good photos of the city of Queenstown, but I did get one of the end of the day:



[All these photos and a few more can be seen here. I'll be busy all day tomorrow, but hopefully Day 3: Milford Sound will be up on Sunday!]