One cannot go to Queenstown without at least going to look at where bungy jumping started and watch a few of those crazy folks continuing the tradition. If fear of heights doesn't stop you then perhaps the tariff ($160 per jump) will. We watched 3 people (all women, all young whatever that means) jump. Another young woman jumped holding as tight as anyone could to her male tour leader. And another young woman chickened out (she did more than I would have done just by standing up on that bridge on the ledge). It was exciting to watch I must say.On to beautiful Te Anau where we stayed on a lake for two nights so we could take a day cruise
on the fiords at Milford Sound. If you take the word spectacular and notch it up ten fold it doesn't begin to describe the beauty of the sound. We were lucky as they were in a drought (their 8th day without rain - it rains about 190 days out of the year) and just had a pleasant cloudy day. Straight ahead in the photo is the small town of Milford Sound with it's own small airport. We were in awe of the pilots who were able to fly between the mountains and land their planes!Driving out of their rugged, rain forest area we went the scenic route (not that everything in this
country isn't scenic!) to flat Invercargil (where we had tried to get on a Habitat build but they already had enough volunteers by the time we called). This is the house the volunteers worked on - good job! The tourist books don't give very high marks to the city but we found it delightful. It's filled with parks and their Queens 
Park in the heart of the city is fantastic complete with all sorts of gardens (the roses are spectacular right now), an honest to goodness croquet court, and even a small animal park for children. The kids were quite impressed with how much John could sound like a pig.
Leaving there we again took the scenic route along the coast through the Caitland area. For this t
rip, it's as far south as we will go (or have ever gone in our lives). Many of the settlers here (there still aren't many) were from Scotland. And you can see why since it looks very much like Scotland with great hills and pastures filled with sheep going down to the sea. They seemed to have forgotten how to make haggis (perhaps a good thing) since it doesn't appear on any menus.
We're now in Dunedin for the day before heading north along the eastern coast. Again we seem to very lucky in avoiding the rain!
Park in the heart of the city is fantastic complete with all sorts of gardens (the roses are spectacular right now), an honest to goodness croquet court, and even a small animal park for children. The kids were quite impressed with how much John could sound like a pig.Leaving there we again took the scenic route along the coast through the Caitland area. For this t
rip, it's as far south as we will go (or have ever gone in our lives). Many of the settlers here (there still aren't many) were from Scotland. And you can see why since it looks very much like Scotland with great hills and pastures filled with sheep going down to the sea. They seemed to have forgotten how to make haggis (perhaps a good thing) since it doesn't appear on any menus.We're now in Dunedin for the day before heading north along the eastern coast. Again we seem to very lucky in avoiding the rain!
