Flight to NZ

The flight to NZ is quite long: 5 hrs (ATL-LAX) + 12 hrs (LAX-AKL) + 2 hrs (AKL-ZQN) = 19 hrs, and that's just in the air, not counting layovers and time spent going through security. New Zealand's security is fairly strict about food and soil being brought in (I saw a little beagle sniff out some kind of pepperoni in one bag and a small bag of carrots in another—the dog could also sniff out food that was there but recently removed). They gave us a bit of a scolding for not declaring our hiking boots in our bags (which we really consider as running shoes). At left is a shot from the rear window of the plane as we approach NZ. The plane landed at about 07:50 so this is dawn as seen from the plane. The image doesn't do it justice, the eye could pick out the colors of the spectrum fairly easily.

At right is a shot from the plane from Auckland to Queenstown.  The south island has some pretty steep looking mountains, reminiscent of the Rockies, but with less foliage.  Queenstown, as it turns out, is an adventurer's destination.  Beside a couple of ski hills around here (too late for that unfortunately, we're here mid-spring), there is also a large glacier lake here.  So there are various sporting activities one could do here. Queenstown reminds me of a small alpine town, similar to Aspen maybe, or more like Kelowna rather, because it also has a kind of "ye olde British" feel to it, sort of like Victoria. Maybe it's like a blend of all three. I would love to try skiing New Zealand, but the length and cost of the flight really make that rather unlikely.

Below is a pic as we were being driven into tow—the cab driver took us on a scenic route and stopped at a nice vantage point. Below, to the right (at far right), is roughly where our hotel is at.  Across from the little bit of water is a tree-covered peninsula.  That is something like a tiny Stanley Park, that juts out from the town that is at the bottom of the peninsula, and at bottom right, unfortunately just out of the picture.  In town are numerous restaurants, pubs, and various kinds of shops.  Our goal today is go walk around there and look at various things (me, a leather jacket of course :)