Day 24: Onward to Queenstown, New Zealand

Wednesday, Feb 29th

We’re off to New Zealand from Sydney this morning. After a delay awaiting the flight crew we were away from the gate, but not so fast. Seems we needed to shift weight from the forward storage bins to the aft storage bins on our B737 due to landing constraints in Queenstown. No problem, we were soon on our way arriving in Queenstown after a 2+ hour flight. We passed through customs, one of the slowest ever experienced and moved on to baggage claim where we learned that the baggage load shift in Sydney was in fact a baggage offload of two tons to lighten the aircraft load. Better to tell us on arrival than to have passengers fretting throughout the flight. Fortunately all of our bags arrived and we moved on to the Hotel St. Moritz in Queenstown.

After drinks in the bar overlooking Lake Wakatipu, we headed for the TSS Earnslaw which would carry us across the lake to the Walter Peak High Country Farm for dinner and a sheep demo.

The TSS Earnslaw, built in 1912, is a coal burning steam propelled ship. For Jack, Greg and me it was a reminder of our own age of steam on Navy ships, the heat, the oily smell and the black smoke were fondly remembered.

After drinks on the Earnslaw we arrived on the opposite shore line at a nice farm house setting. We had a little bit of rain going over and would have a lot more rain on our return to the hotel. At the farm we were served a grand buffet dinner, the lamb shanks and salmon were the top choices on my list but many other foods and desserts were provided including chicken, roast beef, salads and veggies.

Following dessert we moved on to the farm barn area and witnessed a sheep herding dog demo followed by a sheep shearing. It was a good night for us but not so for the shorn sheep as after checking the ewe's teeth the rancher decreed that she wouldn’t survive the winter so her next lot in life would be as mutton on someone’s table; kind of a downer for the shearing demo.

Our ride back across the lake was much quieter than the first ride as we had all consumed a fair amount of wine and as importantly with the two hour time shift from Sydney we were about done. Upon landing, in the rain, we climbed the “mini-Mt. Everest” up to our hotel and said goodnight.