2017-12-03 Fly to Auckland and Home

The only thing on the agenda today was to get started for home. We took the bus to the Christchurch Airport where we said goodbye to Marty, our driver for the entire New Zealand tour. Jim was headed home to Maine, so he flew to Auckland with us. When we arrived in Auckland, we all followed Jim to the International Terminal instead of taking the bus. We probably looked like a bunch of ducklings following their mother!

We waited a couple of hours to board our flight to Los Angeles. The flight left at 7:30 PM on December 3rd. We had dinner on the plane and after watching a movie, we both fell asleep. Thank goodness! When I flew home from Australia 25 years ago, I could not sleep. I ended up with the worst case of jet lag known to man! This time, I slept through the night and woke up early around 4:30 AM on December 3rd!

We had a nice breakfast on the plane and landed, quite refreshed, at about 10:15 on 12/03/17. We had two hours to make our flight to St. Louis and we thought it would be tight since we had to clear customs. That turned out to be a non-issue and we landed in St. Louis about 6:30 PM. We arrived in St. Louis before we left Auckland!

The hotel shuttle took us back to the hotel where we left the truck. We jumped in and were home at 9:00 PM. It was a great trip. We'd highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get a feel for Australia and New Zealand. And if you go with Collette Tours, see if you can get Jim Eldridge as your tour guide. He was great!

2017-12-02 Travel to Morlea Farm, Home Hosted Dinner in Christchurch

It's Saturday, December 2nd, our last full day in New Zealand. We left Mt. Cook, headed back to Christchurch where we started our New Zealand tour last Saturday. On the way, we stopped at Morelea Farm, for an interesting look at a real sheep farm.

Morelea Farm, near the town of Fairlie, contains 800 acres, 20,000 head of sheep, 6,000 head of cattle and 2 men who run the farm! Stan said their main function is to grow grass to feed the sheep and cattle. There are a lot of center pivot irrigation rigs across the level areas of the farm, but the mountain sides must be grazed when mother nature decides to grow the grass. Angie prepared delicious homemade pastries and tea for us. 

After leaving the farm, we made the 2 1/2 hour bus ride back to the Chateau on the Park Hotel where we stayed last Sunday when we first arrived in New Zealand. Our tour group was previously divided into five smaller groups, each destined for a different private residence for a "home hosted dinner." After a brief rest at the hotel, our group of eight people was picked up by a taxi for the short ride to Richard and Barbara's home for dinner.

We sat in the living room and chatted with Richard, a retired botany professor, while Barbara put the finishing touches on dinner. When she came to announce that dinner was ready, Richard informed her that he has just been asked a question and he wanted to answer it before moving to the dining room. After a minute, Barbara interrupted and reminded us that Richard was a professor who gave many lectures and if we wanted to eat while the food was hot, he had better cut his lecture short!

We had a delicious salmon mousse roll appetizer with salad, lamb, potatoes, peas & carrots. The dinner, especially the lamb, was delicious. After dinner, we retired to the living room and Barbara asked if we wanted her to call the taxi which sometimes to an hour to arrive. So, she called the taxi and it arrived in ten minutes! And so, our last evening in New Zealand came to an end.

2017-12-01 Travel to Mt. Cook

We left Queenstown and stopped about twenty minutes northeast of there in Arrowtown. We stopped here for a "splash & dash" when we were on the safari tour the other day, but didn't get to do any exploring. It was on the Arrow River where I panned for gold a few days ago. Arrowtown is an old gold mining town whose miners' cabins have been restored and enhanced, making the town a popular tourist stop and, because of its proximity to Queenstown, a growing little community.

I took a picture of a gold nugget that weighs 159 grams (see below) and is for sale for $25,500 (New Zealand dollars). I checked the price of gold today and it's $58.17 NZD per gram. So, that would be $9,249.03 NZD for the nugget. So how do they figure they can get $25,500 NZD for it? That's why it's still sitting in the shop! 

After we left Arrowtown, we took a short 15 minute ride to the Gibbston Valley Winery where we had a tour and tasted some of their wines.

Down the road a ways, we passed the Wooing Tree Winery and I took a picture of the Wooing Tree. This is from their website: "The Wooing Tree is a local landmark that sits prominently in the middle of our family vineyard. It has long been a place for locals to woo their lovers, and if it could talk, would have many a story to tell! These days it is not quite the private spot it once was…but we still have plenty of visitors proposing marriage and even getting married under our beautiful iconic tree, amidst the vines."

I took some pictures at an overlook on the Ahuriri River. The lupins were thick there. They are not native to New Zealand and are considered a weed. Efforts have been made to eradicate them, but they grow all over the place. We heard this story while on the tour - From the web: "The story goes that the wife of a local farmer decided the drab center of New Zealand's South Island could use some color. So for years she secretly spread lupin seeds along the roadways and riverbeds each spring — some more embellished versions of the story have her doing so while riding naked on the back of a white stallion."

We arrived at the Hermitage Hotel at Mt. Cook around 3:00. We explored the hotel grounds and shot some pictures. A glass of wine in the lounge before dinner was a nice relaxer after a long day on the road.