Queenstown, NZ on the South Island

It pains me not to be able to post any photos today, because this area is SO beautiful. We flew down here on Wednesday. First we visited the Agrodome that morning, where we saw all breeds of sheep and witnessed a sheep being sheared. This was a new experience for 99% of the audience, but not for me. It was still interesting, though. Our flight from the North Island to the South was very scenic, with the lovely rolling hills of the former and the high mountains of the latter. We're in Queenstown, on Lake Wakapitu, and our hotel room overlooks the lake. The first evening here we took a steamer across the lake to a restaurant. That was a pleasant evening with the temperature very mild. Yesterday was a full day with a coach ride to Milford Sound. The sound is actually a fjord, but it's called a sound for some reason. We saw breathtaking views the entire trip, with rugged mountains all around us. We got a rain shower as we neared the fjord, and that immediately produced literally hundreds of waterfalls cascading down the sheer cliffs. What a sight. Once at the fjord, we boarded a boat and took a cruise for a couple of hours. It was a 12-hour day, so we were pooped by the time we got back to the hotel.

Today we'll take a wine-tasting tour in the afternoon (hick!), then have dinner in the home of a local family in the evening. Tomorrow we'll drive up to Mt. Cook, then go on to Christchurch for the night. The next day we cross the "ditch," as the Kiwis and Aussies call the Tasman Sea, and arrive in Australia. I'm sure we're in for a very different experience there.

A couple of tidbits: Many woollen garments here are made of sheep's wool and possum. Yes, possum. Possums are a pest (which our tour guide calls a "pist") here, destroying acres of anything that grows, but recently it has been discovered the possum fur makes a very nice addition to woollens.

Toilets: Most toilets have two flush buttons. You can choose a full flush or a half flush. As our tour guide said, here they have a little ditty that goes like this: If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down. I think you get my drift. It's a water-saving device, and it's quite clever, really.

We continue to have very mild weather, with temperatures at least 70 each day. Today is supposed to be rainy, but I figured our luck would run out eventually.

That's it for now. I hope to post some photos here soon.