Travel day

Today, Tj and her entourage journey from Fox Glacier to Queenstown. It's a long busride, from about 9:30a to 5:15p. It also happens to be through some of the most beautiful landscapes on the planet!

Here is a site showing one of the beautiful spots along the way, Haast Pass.

And Queenstown is said to be one of the 25 most beautiful cities on the planet. Look here and here.

Also, be sure to check out these pictures of the nearby area (more on this in two days!).

16:20

Tj called while I was between the home office and campus office. She and Melanie are staying at a beautiful place in Queenstown: The Butterfli Lodge. It has a fantastic view of The Remarkables and Lake Wakatipu!

Oh yeah ... only 12 days, 6 hours and 30 minutes until I get to hug her again! :)

Isn't my hubby cute! It is true, the bus ride from Fox Glacier to Queenstown was breathtaking: Rainforest clad mountains wreathed with long white clouds, studded with elegant waterfalls plunging down to meet the glacial-melt rivers below, spoiled only by the eaters-of-everything-stinky sitting directly behind us. Blech. Despite the written notices "no eating" and the verbal reminder from the bus driver at each new stop, people still eat on the bus - it's infuriating. They've obviously never suffered motion sickness, morning sickness, or the nausea resulting after a night's bender. Coupled with the nearly constant hair-pin curves that are the norm on many of New Zealand's roadways, a whiff of food may be all one need's before screaming, "Stop the bus!!!!!!"

The eaters-of-everything stinky unfortunately ate CONSTANTLY. Horrid smells of curry (which I usually like), peanuts, and other funk wafted forward. As if this wasn't torture enough, the guy also smokes, so after each bus stop we'd be gagging at his reek of fresh (which never smells fresh) inundation of cigarette smoke, which would then off-gas for about 45 minutes. The situation is worsened by the accompanying soundtrack: Hacking smoker's cough (foul breath only adding to the horrendous smell) and the sound of food being masticated just behind my right ear lobe. Bus driver - can't we stick these people in a roof rack?! I might have to add surgical masks to my travel kit.

Moving on, literally and figuratively: We entered the Central Otago region where we observed an incredibly abrupt change from rainforest to rugged, tussock covered hills. There are beautiful lakes in this region, and lashing rain gives way to partial clouds as we leave the rainy west coast (averaging more than 5 meters of rain a year) for the veritably dry (less than 1 meter of rain per year on average) Central Otago region. Rainbows are sprouting like mushrooms in the misty weather - I've seen two in the last 10 minutes.


See what I mean? 

More later.
Love, Teej