The last segment of our NZ trip involved driving from Queenstown to Mt. Cook (for 2 nights) and then to the airport at Christchurch where Gary and Susan had a flight out on Qantas for four days in Fiji before returning to Oregon. After dropping them off at the airport, we checked-into a B&B in Christchurch and continued to explore the town centre on foot.
Before leaving Queenstown, however, Nancy and Susan discovered lawn bowling in a beautiful park not far from our lodgings. The second picture was designed to portray Nancy’s glee at besting Susan in scoring! While driving toward Mt. Cook NP we had one 15-minute delay on the highway while a farmer figured out how to get his dairy cattle to abandon their blockade of the road.
We had excellent accommodations at the Alpine Lodge at Mt. Cook; however, rain was the order of the day during most of the time we were there. On our lay-over day we attempted to hike up the Hooker Valley for a spectacular view but had to turn back due to strong wind and rain that came into us on almost a horizontal plane.
“The Last Supper” (the last evening meal with the four of us together) was an amazingly delicious buffet at the Hermitage Hotel on the evening of January 7.
In spite of our inability to ever see the full mountain in all its glory, we did manage some fine pictures.
Back in Christchurch we said farewell to Gary and Susan on Jan. 8th at the end of a wonderful trip and then spent some time later in the afternoon wandering through the botanical garden very near the town centre. - rw
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