Monday June 1 was the Queen’s birthday
holiday in NZ. It’s not technically Queen Elizabeth’s birthday, but that’s the
date the Kiwis have selected to celebrate it. Guess they decided that it would
fit there best on their holiday calendar, and it’s considered the first day of
winter here as well. I celebrated by working in the home office all day, always
plenty of legal work to do. It was a short work week anyway, Monday through
Wednesday, and the rest of the week to play.
Thursday morning Alisa and I were up
early to catch our 7 a.m. flight out of Auckland airport. While the NZ borders
are still closed to international flight due to COVID 19, they are encouraging
domestic flights to try to bring their tourism industry back. It was
interesting to note that at the airport no one was wearing a mask, not even
“social distancing”. Other than a little hand sanitizer and fewer people, it
appeared to me that the reality is that the NZ people have moved on. Freeway
traffic and city traffic is back to normal as well. One nice side benefit
however was that people were seated every other seat on the plane, which meant
more legroom for me! We also boarded the plane a few at a time, row by row. The
2 hour flight to Queenstown on the South Island went smoothly. We descended
through snow dusted mountains. We were greeted at the airport by Martin and
Margaret Bourne. They are from Christchurch,NZ, in their late 60’s, serving in
Queenstown as mls missionaries with his specific assignment as branch president
of the branch there. So far they have mainly served remotely due to COVID 19,
they are trying to reactivate the branch. When they can meet in the rented
house in Queenstown which they use as their chapel, they average about 45 to 50
on Sundays, but only about 15 are locals, with the rest being tourists.
It was a nippy Thursday in Queenstown, in the 30’s and low
40’s. Queenstown is located right on a picturesque lake, and surrounded by
mountains. The downtown is quaint and designed for tourists. We stopped for hot
chocolate at Patagonia and to get to know our hosts a little better. We had met
them at the NZ MTC when we volunteered to be Investigators for them to practice
on back in February. Then we walked the streets of Queenstown to window shop
before visiting Fergburgers for lunch. I had a venison burger. Most of the
touristy shops were restaurants, sweets or clothing stores. We also stopped by nearby
Arrowtown, another little tourist town with an old Main Street that almost
looked like it came right out of the old West. Then we drove on to Cromwell,
where the Bournes rent a house.
Friday morning we were given a tour of Cromwell, a town of
about 5000 people, but it is not oriented around tourism. By now I was wearing
my long johns to keep warm. We spent the afternoon driving to Te Anau. Elder
Bourne’s driving left something to be desired, he usually was speeding on the
windy narrow roads, and usually too far to the left! For the trip, I felt like
I was taking my life in my hands being in his 4 door green Honda compact. But
the Bournes have hearts of gold, and I survived both their driving! We saw many
beautiful pastures and sheep, as well as rivers and hills. We pulled into town
as the sun was going down. We checked into our rooms at the Top 10 Holiday Parks, a chain of
motels around NZ. Fortunately our room was toasty warm, because it was cold,
Alisa and I didn’t explore the grounds much there. We ate dinner at The Ranch
house, an Americanized restaurant down the road. I had a nice steak with salad
and “chips”.
Saturday we ate breakfast at a cafe downtown, my eggs
Benedict and salmon were good. We stopped for gas at CalTex, and got sandwiches
for later in the day at Subway. Then we embarked for Fiordland National Park.
That was another 2 hour drive. By now we were driving in the Alp like mountains
and by crystal clear lakes with a light dusting of snow. We had to wait almost
an hour before we were allowed to drive through the single lane tunnel through
a large mountain, between 1-2 miles long. On the other side the weather was
sunny and bright. We were fortunate to have beautiful crisp weather the entire
time we were down south, instead of the predicted rain. We stopped by the
museum where I had just enough time to buy a poster, then found our ship, the
Mitre Peak I and disembarked for a 2 hour tour of Milford Sound. The snow
capped mountains and waterfalls did make one feel like he was in the fiords of
Norway. The water was smooth on the sound, then turned choppy as we broke free
into the Tasman sea for a quick tour of the rocky shoreline before re-entering
the sound for the return trip. We also saw a number of dolphins in the sound.
If our cruise at the end of our mission actually happens we’ll revisit the
Milford sound then along with 2 other sounds. Otherwise, we can check this trip
off our bucket list now. We retraced our steps back to Te Anau, ate dinner at
The Fat Duck (I had the seafood chowder which included green lipped muscles),
then on to Cromwell.
This morning we got up early to shower and repack, then
caught the 2 hour morning flight via Air New Zealand back to Auckland to spend
the rest of our sabbath day. Enjoyed
Sunday School via zoom, then dinner with all the Auckland OGC couples at the
Tanner home.
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