settling into tuatapere

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we've been in tuatapere for almost a week now. turns out, we are in the middle of farm country. there are hundreds of sheep farms in this area... a drive around reveals large green acreages littered with thousands of sheep. they are so cute! the population of new zealand is about 4 million people... there are about 39 million sheep in the country ... about 9 for every person! most of the sheep are on the south island....so there are actually about 20 sheep per person on the south island.

tuatapere is pretty small....there is one small grocery store in town, two gas stations, a few craft shops, and two butchers. being the "sausage capital" of NZ...we decided that we should try the famous sausages. we purchased a variety from the original butcher as well as the new butcher in town.... gotta say...they were OK but nothin' to write home about.

we've noticed that the beef in NZ tastes different than at home. apparently, the cows in NZ are mostly all grass-fed (as opposed to grain).... jeff thinks that beef tastes a bit more like game here. we've also been eating a fair bit of lamb....delicious...but now i am having conflicting thoughts since i've become quite enamoured by the cute sheep in the farms....

yesterday, was my first venture into fiordland national park (the biggest national park in NZ)...and home to some of the amazing scenes from lord of the rings. lake hauroko is the deepest lake in NZ (462metres)... and it is only about 45 minutes from tuatapere. so while jeff was in clnic...i took a trip on my own to check out the lake and do a short hike out to the lookout bluff. the views were quite stunning.

afterwards, jeff and i drove up to queenstown, which is about 2.5 hours north. the drive was absolutely gorgeous! we camped overnight by Lake Wakapitu and then headed over to Queenstown for a meeting this morning. we got a quick tour of downtown queenstown (super cute...lots of nice restaurants, cafes, ...) and got some grocery shopping done (there is not much available in tuatapere - with the exception of and abundance of sausages and dairy products)... and drove back in time to watch some matches from the rugby 7's this weekend.

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Photos

mmm..
our first taste of tuatapere sausage