After hanging out in Wanaka for 3 or 4 days, I continued my drive south to Queenstown. While there, I met up with Sandra, who used to work with my twin sister Jaime in Colorado. Sandra is in New Zealand to hopefully find full time work, but in the meantime, she was happy to make a few trips around the Queenstown area with me. It really is a beautiful area with plenty of outdoor recreational opportunities, so it was great to meet up with someone to do a little exploring.

We both wanted to do some tramping, so our first trip was to Glenorchy to hike part of the Routeburn Track. The Routeburn is one of NZ's great walks; normally you have to prebook with the Department of Conservation to walk the track. The official tramping season doesn't open until the end of October however, so luckily we didn't have to worry about that. Avalanche danger still persisted in some sections of the trail, but it was safe to hike to the Falls Hut, which we reached after a fairly easy, yet spectacular 3 hours of tramping. The hut was huge-with enough room to sleep 30 people! Sandra and I, however, had the whole place to ourselves until just one other person showed up later in the night. That was really cool to have the whole space to ourselves; I think it would be a completely different experience with so many other people there. After some interesting conversation about whether man ever actually made it to the moon, and a not so interesting card game of war (who ever invented that game anyway?), we fell asleep and took off down the trail the next morning. Overall, a really nice 2 days of tramping and driving amongst beautiful mountains, forests, and waterfalls.

A few days later Sandra and I struck out for Te Anau and with plans of visiting the World Heritage area of Fiordland and Milford Sound. Unfortunately the weather didn't quite cooperate, and the kayaking trip we had booked was cancelled because of avalanche danger on the road to Milford Sound. We were kind of bummed out about that, but really, how beautiful could a World Heritage site be anyway? Actually, I do really hope to return to that area at some point before I leave this country. Although our major goal of visiting Milford Sound was not accomplished, Sandra and I still had a fun time in Te Anau. The landscape really reminded me of Juneau-mountains, mist hanging over the water, and also, a lot of rain! We also had a chance to meet up with Geoff from the Bootsnall community. Geoff suggested checking out happy hour at a local bar in Te Anau, where we were all pleasantly suprised to find that the tap beer was only 1.50!

I've also been finding plenty of time for some good runs, which I've been pretty happy about. The other day I decided to run up the Ben Lemond trail to check out the Gondola in Queenstown. On my way up, I was stopped my three woman who told me they were pretty sure Prince Harry was working up there. That seemed pretty unlikely to me, as the last I had heard, Prince Harry was working as a jackaroo at a ranch in Australia, and not as a gondola worker in Queenstown. However, since I was heading up there anyway, I assured them that I would check it out. I didnt' see even one red haired worker up there; granted though, I didn't check out the luge workers. Still, I left feeling pretty assured that I had not missed out on my chance to meet the prince.

I've been spending the better part of last week in my tent, which overall is going very well. The campgrounds have been fairly empty, but if I ever get lonely, I have plenty of sandflies to keep me company! Most of the time, I really like camping, although my tent didn't quite rise to the challenge of keeping out all the rain in Te Anau. Hopefully the folks at Mountain Hardwear will pull through so I don't spend any soggy nights in that tent.

Well anyway, I am keeping with my plans on heading further south; pretty soon, I will hit as far south as I can go, and will head up to Dunedin. Until later everyone....