Other places I visited (without taking photos) are:

• Christchurch Museum
• International Antarctic Centre
• Various pubs and nightclubs, none of which deserve a link, but
  which kept me busy in the evenings

I stayed in the centre of town on the 30th floor of the BreakFree
Beachcombers Hotel. Cheap room so I wasn’t facing the beach, but it
was across the road.

I was a full on tourist and went on the local “Duck” ride, a
combination bus/boat. It was a bit dark for photography, but here are
a couple of shots anyway.

On my last afternoon there before my flight to Christchurch, I went up
to the observation deck in the Q1 residential tower and took a few
shots of the scenery (and reflections of the windows).

Next stop, Christchurch.

From left to right:

• Andy
• Scott
• Jonty
• Thomas (Tom-Tom)
• Trudi
• Mike
• Yours Truly

Lake Hawea is a hydroelectric lake, but of course is just as scenic as
the rest of the South Island.

Andy didn’t have his camera so borrowed mine. The next two photos are
his work.

After saying goodbye to Scott & family, we hit the road to Arrowtown. On the way, we passed the Wanaka airfield.

View Larger Map

As we passed, I took a photo of the tent where we had spent most of
the previous 3 days.

Closer to Arrowtown, we passed some old goldfields on the river. We stopped for a look and had a beer at a goldfields museum.

Being near Queenstown, of course there was a jetboat below.

When we made it to Arrowtown, we checked out the old Chinese settlement from the gold-mining era.

Then we went into town, where we looked at the old buildings, …

Andy went shopping, …

and Mike and I had an Amstel, …

and admired the view.

The photos stop here, but we were running late and made a dash for Queenstown airport. We had to fill the rental car before returning it and ended up at the busiest petrol station on the South Island. We made it to the airport where we had to rearrange all the bags to get the weights correct. By the time we got to the gate the terminal door had been closed but we talked them into re-opening it for us and we made it onto the plane for the flight to Christchurch.

After 20 minutes there, we were on the flight to Napier which got us in at about 8:30pm last night.

Shotover Jet

Shotover River

A news article about the fire.

Click on the photos for larger versions. I was experimenting with different modes of my camera if you were wondering why it seems to jump back into daylight as it gets later.

Edit: Added some more photos this morning (20th)

Time: 18:38

Time: 19:25

Time: 19:49

Time: 19:50

Time: 20:25

Time: 20:28

Time: 20:37

Time: 21:02

Time: 23:07

Time: 00:15

Time: 05:46

Time: 07:00

Time: 07:03

Time: 07:28

Time: 07:45

I picked up a new camera in duty free on my way out of Melbourne. It’s shockproof and waterproof and thus ideal for my rough handling. Anyway, here are my first few attempts at photography. Click on the photos for larger images.

Milk Train coming through Manawatu Gorge.

Wind generators above Manawatu Gorge

Mike’s second son Omar.

Andrew’s Land Rover (V8 109) parked at the back of the pilot shop.