My new mate @OliverKIWI posted about his flight to Milford Sound earlier today which reminded me of my trip to South Island New Zealand. My wife and her parents travelled over and stayed at the Nugget Point Hotel for 14 days. We were based at Queenstown and we drove all over the South Island. The trip was amazing and memorable in that way that only a good trip can be.
The view out of our bedroom at the hotel was quite remarkable, and as you can imagine it was awesome to wake up, then go onto the balcony to have our breakfast.
The mountain range opposite the Queenstown over Lake Wakatipu is known as The Remarkables for obvious reasons. When researching the trip, I was so hoping to be able to capture a panorama of these mountains with a snow cap. For the first 10 days of the trip while it was amazing, photographically I was a little sad that there was no snow, then on this day there was snow on the mountain near hotel and I raced down to the lake to see, and then spent hours making series after series of photos to make a giant panorama. I can’t show it in all its glory here on Connect due to the size limitations, but lets just say it’s big 
Interestingly in Queenstown you will meet hardly any New Zealanders. Basically the customs people, the police and the people running TSS Earnslaw. Nearly everyone else is a working back packer or tourist!
Above the town there is a cable car that takes you up above the Ben Lomond mountain and you get treated to this amazing view.
After a few freezing hours I captured the same scene at night which was like jewels twinkling down below.
We drove across the island to Duneden to ride a local railway (hey its me, I’m a train nut). This is the gaol so you can imagine what the rest of the city is like! New Zealand certainly know how to preserve their history.
One of the best parts of the trip was riding TSS Earnslaw which is a steam ship that makes speed similar to modern war ships which is pretty fantastic for a ship over 100 years old that runs on hand fired coal boilers. On the trip I paid a lot of attention to the guys down below and was invited down. I talked about the railway I volunteer on and was handed the banjo (coal shovel) and started firing. The beast was very hungry and when you had finished the eight shovels for one boiler, then you had to go to the next, and the next and the next. Then right back to the first one. One shovel in each corner, three in the middle across the grate then one directly under the door.
One of the cool places was Bradrona which I guess started out as a joke but has become a major tourist attraction that raises plenty of cash for breast cancer research. Thousands of women have hung a bra on the fence here in support of their fellows.
The Cardrona Hotel was half way on the high road to Dunedin and looked amazing. But on revisiting my review I feel that it perhaps looks better than it is!
There are a lot of instagram ready famous places such as the station at Glenorchy.
Milford Sound is incredible, its one of the places where you feel a total connection to this earth. I can’t really describe it except that it is beautiful.
Thanks for joining me on this quick tour of the South Island of New Zealand. We had an amazing experience and are sure to return.
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