We slept soundly until 8 AM (thanks to good old Zzzquil). Jessica, our daughter-in-law who lives in Auckland, met us at the hotel around 10AM to receive the two extra suitcases we brought that contained a painting for their home and things they ordered and had delivered to our home. There is no Amazon or Costco in New Zealand yet and there are many products that are simply unavailable, so whenever they come home or someone heads to New Zealand there is usually a suitcase or two to bring products they need or want (like Catalina Lite salad dressing).

After visitng in the hotel lobby for about an hour we headed to the airport for our 1.75 hour flight to Queenstown, New Zealand. Fun facts:  New Zealand has a population of 4.4 million people, with 1.034 million living on the South Island. There are over 30 million sheep in New Zealand, and the vast majority reside on the South Island. The 2013 census indicated that 28,224 people lived in the Queenstown area. It is probably closer to 35,000 now we were told.  We were met at the airport by a driver (part of the tour package)  who collected our luggage and drove us to our hotel near downtown Queenstown for the next three nights.

Queenstown is framed by the Remarkable Mountains and lies on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, which is 84 km long and has a depth of 399 meters. Originally a gold mining town in the 1860s, it was named Queenstown because “it was fit for Queen Victoria”.  It is recognized as the adventure capital of New Zealand. As would be expected the town is populated with younger, adventurous people. Outdoor sports dominate – hiking, bicycling, climbing, water sports, snow skiing- all are available in the Queenstown area. Bungee jumping was first started here. It is a beautiful site and reminded me a bit of of Switzerland or Austria.

Our hotel was a five minute walk to the compact downtown area which is the home of shops featuring outdoor clothing and equipment, and restaurants and bars catering to the thousands of tourists that visit here every year. It is certainly a “vibrant” scene. I had researched some of the suggested restaurants in the area and had made reservations at a highly recommended one called “Rata” which turned out to be simply fantastic!  Surprisingly New Zealand is not inexpensive. Prices in restaurants for both food and drink are “Seattle” prices. We walked the town a bit after dinner and found a “funky” cookie/ice cream store called Cookie Muncher where I found my dessert for the evening – an ice cream sandwich. We then returned to our hotel and called it a night by 9 PM (still catching up with jet lag).

Our official escorted tour does not begin until March 22 so we have a couple of days to explore the area and take in some of the local attractions before our group departs. The weather is expected to be somewhat iffy the next few days so we are going to let the weather and our mood determine what we do and when.