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South Island, New Zealand

Three weeks of mountains, lakes, sheep and wineries

By David Goodlad

March 16^th, 2014

Queenstown

“Towns shouldn’t exist in places this beautiful, it’s just unfair” – Georgia

Glenorchy

Despite the questionable weather, the winding hour-long drive from Queenstown to Glenorchy treated us to some incredible sights.

Franz-Josef Glacier

We blew our budget for “awesome things” for the whole month on a 45-minute helicopter flight from the town of Franz-Josef, up and over the F-J Glacier, orbited Mt Cook, and landed on the Fox Glacier! Worth. Every. Penny.

While little could compare to the helicopter flight earlier in the day, we went for a walk through some mountain bike trails, ending up in some farmer’s field just in time to catch a glimpse of the sunset over the mountains.

Akaroa

The town of Akaroa didn’t have much to offer; frankly, it’s boring. So boring, in fact, that I didn’t take any photos worth posting!

The entire region around Akaroa, on the other hand? Incredible.

Instead of staying in town, Georgia found us the perfect accommodation: an alpaca farm above Le Bons Bay.

Mt Cheesman

While Georgia flew North to Auckland, I had one last stop on the South Island: Railscamp NZ was held at the Mt Cheesman ski field. I and ~80 other computer geeks made our way up the steep gravel road to stay at the isolated lodge for the weekend, and enjoy some “offline” time.