Thursday, January 7, 2010

Long day’s journey into night…


We arrived in Queenstown after a 30+ hour travel adventure that included almost as much layover time as air time. We’re here and happy about it. We changed planes in Auckland in the far north of the north island and flew to Queenstown in the far south of the south island. The temperature change was quite noticeable. Auckland was significantly warmer than Queenstown. I think there is about a 5 degree latitude difference between the two. Queenstown is at 45 degrees south latitude. Coincidentally, Minneapolis is at 45 degrees north latitude. They are equidistant from the equator. Due to the ocean influence and the elevation, Queenstown is much cooler in the summer and much warmer in the winter than Minneapolis.
We ran into a “J-term” group from Gustavus Adolphus College in St Peter, MN. They were here for a couple days then heading to Australia. What a nice trip for these kids.
The backdrop for Queenstown is the Remarkables mountain range and Lake Wakatipu. Pictures do not do it justice, but it is all I can offer. The city was founded as part of the gold rush in the 1860’s. The gold is long gone but the locals are still making it out of tourist dollars. And with the setting, why not!

1 comment:

  1. Wow! What a beautiful site. Hope you have a fantastic trip. This blog is real cool!
    Darlene-Hannah Circle

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