Journey to Mt. Cook

Sunday April, 21, 2013
We had a dinner last night with a host family. We were picked up at 6:00 PM along with another couple to enjoy a dinner with a New Zealand family. It was a very nice visit and dinner. The food and the conversation were both very good. The host couple live in Arrowtown.
We had a fire alarm this morning that got everyone out of the hotel a bit earlier than planned. The alarm did not even sound on our level, so hotel staff were going up and down the hall knocking and opening doors to alert guests to evacuate. It must have been a false alarm since everyone was allowed in after about 10 minutes.
We drove to Arrowtown which is only 20 minutes away from Queenstown.
Here we walked up and down the streets of shops. The town used to be an old mining town and the building fronts have been preserved to keep some of the history. There are still some miners' cottages that have also been restored. It was a neat little town.




The old town look. The street is now paved but the old fronts are a nice touch.




Here is a miner's cottage but this one is a bit larger than most. This miner must have done quite well. The shutters and trees and fence of course have been added. There were no native deciduous trees at that time.




It definitely is fall in this part of New Zealand. The leaves are so colorful with the sun shining on them.
We stopped at a Mrs. Jones large fruit stand which had cookies, nuts, candy, jelly as well as lots of fruits. We drove through the town of Cromwell that was once flooded and rebuilt. It is considered the oldest new town in New Zealand. This whole area is noted for fruit so hence their town icon is a a large display of fruit. It resembles Fruit of the Loom a little bit.




I had a little bit of a problem taking this photo on the opposite side of the bus.




Some snow on the mountains, so it is cold at higher elevations.
We got toThe Hermitage Hotel which is in the Mt. Cook National Park. We are not able to actually see Mt. Cook but we did get a glimmer of sunshine and a speck of blue sky for a better photo of the snowy mountains. It really is beautiful.




Just a speck of blue is so pretty against the snow covered mountains. The dark mountains are in the foreground. Where there is snow there is cold.
We had a nice reception with our group this evening before our dinner. It was nice to get together and chat with lots of folks before we make our final return. We hit the road early again to tomorrow and the following day we take off for Los Angeles.




This is the view from our room. It is hard to see the snow on the mountain, but it is there.




There was a neat 3 wheel motorcycle that was parked at the hotel. Just had to put it on the blog because it looked so different.