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Published: February 1st 2008
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I am now back in Christchurch. The Garden City or the English City. In Queenstown and the most exciting activity I did was the Luge, down the mountain 😊 Still, great fun and very nice mountain scenery while going doing the track. I faniced a visit to the Ice Bar! Basically a bar where everything is made out of ice including the glass.
Next stop after Queenstown - Dunedin. The Scottish city of the south and the name derived from "Edin"burgh. I went to the Cadbury chocolate factory tour, we also got some chocolates of course but nothing fresh out of the factory. On leaving Dunedin we had the chance to the world's steepest street. People living on that street must get good workout everyday!
There are finer things in life and I didn't think feeding the Salmon would be one of them. We stopped by a Salmon farm. On the surface it looks like there is no fish and the water is quite. But when you throw some food in their the Salmon jumps out and go crazy. Splash, splash! Fiesty Salmon I would say.
Lake Takapo
Next stop - Lake Takapo. The lakes
around this region have an amazing dark turquoise colour. They are Glacier filled lake and the rocks give them their colour. I took and stargazing tour while I was in Lake Takapo. We went to Mt John observatory for star gazing at 1 am... really late tour. A bit worrying when dirving up to Mt John because vehicles must have their headlights turned off so we were driving in the dark. It was really cold up there in the observatory but really interesting talk from the astrologist. We saw satellites, shooting stars and galaxies. Looking through the telescope I could see amazing view of the stars, a bit like bright shinning glitter in the sky. The view of the moon was really beautiful. My favorite of all was looking at Saturn! Even from the telescope it looked small but it was really clear and sharp. The Saturn rings clearly visible. We weren't allowed to take pics, not that they would come out on my camera but the pic on this page is pretty close to how it was up there.
Mt. Cook
I have never stayed near mountains and I liked the idea of spending a
night near the mountains. I went to Mt Cook village from where you can go trekking and hiking. I went for few hikes and got a good view of Mt Cook. It's around 3700 km high but doesn't look that high when you're near it. Like many places in this region, the mountain is named after Captain James Cook.
I have done the West coast of south Island and I am heading up the East Coast. So far I have meet some really nice people on the way. It's a fine sunny day in Christchurch and I am going to spend the rest of the day relaxing.
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