It's nice to start walking very early because the animals are out. Ann Marie saw 3 deer on the way here. It's also the time the birds wake up and start singing. There is one bird in particular that has a beautiful song.
We got to Queenstown at noon and left our bags at the Southern Laughter hostel (we couldn't check in until 1PM). Shari and I walked over to the library to use the internet and then we checked out restaurants for tonight's dinner.
Ann Marie had to take the 2 PM bus from Queenstown back to Te Anau to pick up their rental car. She should be back about 6PM. We did errands, showers etc. while we are waiting for her to get back. This is a pretty reasonable hostel. We have a 4-bunk room and share a kitchen, living room and bathroom with another 4-bunk room which is currently occupied by 4 young guys. (1 from Wales, 2 from UK, 1 from Japan). The fellow from Wales has been travelling for 5 months.
Went to a pasta place for dinner which is the first restaurant (except for Wendy's) that Shari and I have been out to for dinner since we started our trip. We then got ice cream at the grocery store to eat at the hostel while Ann Marie and Julianna finished packing, They are leaving for the airport about 9:30 AM tomorrow.
3/22: Ann Marie and Juianna left about 9:30 for the airport and then Shari and I organized our gear for a while. Went to the post office to mail notes and a few miscellaneous items to Susan and then got coffee and soda at the bakery and sat upstairs overlooking one of the main streets in Queenstown to do the planning for the rest of our time in New Zealand.
There is alot to see here but we still have quite a few days, and I think we have the highlights covered. It will be so nice to have a car for most of the time we have left here. We went to the car rental place to confirm the car pick-up at noon tomorrow and to give them the dates we want a car on the North Island. We have it from 3/23 - 4/02 in the South Island and 4/09 - 4/14 on the North Island.
After the car rental place we went to an Internet Cafe (my first time in one) to check emails and reserve a room in Bangkok. I saw pictures of the place that Emma and Sharon recommended and it looks quite nice. I booked us a double room for 4 nights (4/15 - 4/18) at US$12.50 per person per night. Bangkok is a really inexpensive place to stay.
Had my worst dinner since we started traveling. Weird "hot dogs" with pasta and butter. Shari thought the hot dogs might end up being a little strange when we bought them in the grocery store and she was right. They had a sort of reddish skin that popped open when I fried them and they were a greyish brown underneath. They tasted sort of like the canned Vienna sausages I used to eat on the AT. I swore I'd never eat another one of them but I ate the hot dogs anyhow.
We had used the upstairs kitchen because our living/kitchen area was kind of crowded. We had 2 young women from Denmark move into our bunkroom and they and 4 young fellows were all sitting and eating and watching tv. The young people we've met are all very nice and polite. Went to bed early for lack of anything else to do, but I think I'm getting too much sleep and not enough exercise the past couple of days.
3/23: Nothing special this morning, but round noon we did get to talk to Jonathan (a fellow we met on the AT) about meeting us in Scotland. It was great to talk to him and we made tentative arrangements to meet him in Inverness sometime around June 12th-14th. He is going to call Richard (Big Dig) to let him know what we are thinking of doing in Scotland. Richard will probably meet us in London and then travel up to Edinburgh and then Inverness with us to meet Jonathan. Jonathan wants to go to the Orkney Islands but he will do that on his own before he meets us. We would rather spend time around Torridon and Skye and not take the time to travel all the way up to the Orkneys.
We picked up the car about 1 PM and it was neat to drive on the "wrong" side of the road. We picked up our stuff from the hostel and then headed out to a store called The Warehouse (like our Job Lot) to buy a few things. Shari and I bought 2 fiction books that we both want to read. I haven't done much pleasure reading during the last few years and I'm looking forward to having a book to read for entertainment.
We then drove to Wanaka (about 110 km) from Queenstown. I drove partially and then Shari drove so we could each get used to driving on the left. It doesn't seem to be a problem for either of us except that we both turn on the windshield wipers when we mean to hit the turn signal.
Wanaka is a lovely little town like te Anau. Beautiful lake and mountains all around. We checked out a few hostels and decided to camp at the YHA hostel - NZ$10 a night (about US$6). Very nice common areas and the crowd is a more mixed-age group than the hostel in Queenstown. It's great to be able to use the kitchen, bathrooms, laundry and tv/game room, even though we are tenting.
They just had some news on about the war and the concern about the impact it will have on the economy here. It just seems unreal to me that there is a war going on when I'm surrounded by such natural beauty in such a peacful environment.
We picked out a fairly long hike to do tomorrow to get some good exercise. It's okay to eat lots of junk food when you are hiking every day, but not when we are just driving in a car, and I've been eating lots of junk food regardless of whether I hike.
