Routeburn Track and Milford Sound

Good-bye South Island

It was hard to leave Queenstown today! Gorgeous sunny weather that was actually warm. The snowstorm from Saturday made all the mountains pop against the blue sky. The Queenstown airport waiting lounge had the most amazing picture-perfect view of rolling green hills.


Wellington greeted us with cold wind. Our car at the long-term car park had salt on the windscreen-- somehow it was so windy that the waves managed to spray our car. Our car was parked about 1/2 mile away from the harbour.

Snowy Queenstown trip

Over ribs and lamb at Mac's brewery last night in Wanaka, we developed an intelligent 3-part plan for the next day based on the weather.

1. Great snow: Ohau ski resort near Mt. Cook.
2. Mediocre snow: Coronet in Queenstown
3. Raining, no snow: Puzzling World in Wanaka and tour Queenstown

We hadn't counted on possibility #4: snowING.

As we drove to Queenstown, the snow started in. We considered driving back but decided to keep to plan #2: drive to Coronet. We ended up there around noon, but the snow was so thick that we couldn't even see the chair lifts from the cafe. We stopped for lunch and then headed to Queenstown to tour around. I love these orange trees there:


Just before we left Queenstown we all had gelato at an ice-cream shop I had been searching for.

Our drive home was pretty dicey due to the snow storm. Fortunately Bryce is experienced driving in the snow and we had 4-wheel drive.