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Published: March 14th 2015
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New Zealand is 1,200 miles Southeast of Australia. Jet Star, Quantas' no-frills carrier, threaded its way down between the snow capped Southern Alps and landed in a pastoral valley, dotted with green pastures and lakes. it was there a rainbow appeared! I felt the peace of Queenstown and couldn't wait to get out and explore! An 'anti smoking' ban was passed, which I understand has also happened in many cities in Australia. Many hotels dot the shore and quite a few backpacker hostels as well. The general population seemed to be quite youthful; population 5 million.
Here's a little New Zealand history for you: Consists of two major islands, the North and the South. Queenstown is on the South island. There are a few offshore islands close to Antarctica. The islands are separated by the Cook Straits, a very turbulent waterway. NZ is surrounded by three bodies of water; the South Pacific ocean borders the North and East; the Tasman Sea is on the West coast and to the South, the Southern Ocean. The two islands are.1,000 miles in length and 174 miles across. It is 17 hours ahead of NY.
The first inhabitants, Maori, arrived from Polynesia by
Maori hosts
We had traditional Maori dinner, consisting of mashed potatoes, salad and meat pot pie, which had been cooked over local thermal followed by delicious dessert. canoe around 1000.. Maori's named this land, 'land of the long white cloud'. Early in the morning mist settles close to the lake and so the name. The Maori's intermarried with the 'Moa Hunter's. Descendants of these two groups now form the basis of the Maori Tribes. They lived in harmony with nature and carved unique wood carvings and tattoos. When we flew into Rotorua, we spent a day at the Maori Village and later was invited to a Maori home for a traditional dinner, which is mainly cooked over a thermal. The food is placed into a lizard skin pouch and lowered into a thermal. There are many thermals around the village. In the 1300's a second wave of Maori settlers came from Hawaii, which provoked tribal warfare. Eventually settlers from Great Britian and Holland arrived and introduced disease which killed off many Maori.
Missionaries arrived and the Maori embraced Christianity as they had the ability to cure diseases which the Maori did not have. Traditional Maori culture began to dissolve.
In 1840 Britain formally annexed the islands, independence from Britain was achieved in 1947. Many Maori Tribes were tricked into signing a treaty, which promised to
give them the same rights, unfortunately, they lost much of their land, the British won. Our dinner hosts told us when they growing up, the government disallowed the Maori's to speak the native language, there had been much abuse. Today Maori language is taught in all schools as a second language.
Queenstown is a youthful, vibrant village situated on Lake Wakatipu, surrounded by mountains. Parachute jumping off the mountain is quite common along with the jet boats, old steamer built in 1912 and various other boating activities. Activities continue on the lake in the winter as it doesn't freeze. There are two ski areas not far from town, open in the winter.
We boarded the 1912 steamer and went to Walther Peak sheep station to see sheep being sheared and enjoy coffee and scones while overlooking the flower gardens against the lake. We learned there were two different breeds of sheep, one that is bread for it's meat and wool and the other, a smaller sheep, Merino, is raised for it's wool, which is very valuable and used to make fine woolen garments. The wool from the larger sheep is mainly used to make rugs. NZ exports 95%
of all milk produced, is the world's largest exporter of dairy products. All of the dairy industry is pasture-based.
One of the highlights was taking a cruise on Milton Sound, which is actually a fiord. The mountain formations were spectacular, some snow capped. We saw a waterfall and fur seals bathing on the rocks. We also stopped off at Mirror Lake and caught nice reflection photos of the surrounding mountains.
The jet boat is a blast, as it whizzes past rocks, bridges, shorelines at amazing speeds! When the operator of the.boat twirled his hand around, it meant get ready for a few fast turns & lots of spray! We went up a very shallow winding riverbed, the boat only needs a few feet of water. The water was warm & we didn't mind the spray!
We took a walk down Arrowtown, which had been popular during the 1862 gold rush. Many Chinese came to cash in on the gold, they were cheap labor and eventually settled into small communities. It resembled a small 'wild west' town and has become a popular place to live. Property prices run fairly high.
We stopped at Gibson Winery,
where we were told they needed poor soil to grow the grapes. They had homemade chocolate to compliment each wine they produced. I enjoyed the chocolates very much!!
I truly loved my stay in this beautiful, pristine country.......
Plse scroll down to see all the photos!
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Nancy
non-member comment
What an interesting trip
Thanjs for sharing Marilyn. Never knew where Merino wool came from. Years ago I learned techniques for teaching reading that were developed by people teaching Maori children to read. Complicated history, the Maori.