New Zealand! WOW

New Zealand is awesome! Green and lush and populated with lots of friendly people.  We started our nine-day New Zealand trip in Queenstown. While there, we took the Skyline cable car to the top of a mountain and had a wonderful view of the city.

The next day we went to Milford Sound, which we highly recommend. At first, we were rather turned off by the fact that it would be a 4 1/2 hour coach ride to get there, but the journey turned out to be almost as magnificent as the destination itself. The driver stopped three or four times for a coffee break and picture taking.

The countryside along the way was spectacular. When we arrived at Milford Sound, we boarded a cruise ship for a 2- hour tour through snow-capped mountains and waterfalls.

The Hilton Hotel we stayed at was on the beautiful Wakatipu lake and had a very nice bar at the top of the hotel. We could sit outside and enjoy the scenery and since it was a perfect 70 something degrees, Denny and George never had to miss their cigar. The bartender Mat, who was from Florida was a delight and was happy to see us each night when we stopped in.  

Walking around town, we found an Irish Pub, “Pug Mahone’s” Another great place for sitting outside and people watching. There was a Marathon and an arts and craft festival going on one morning so there were lots of people around.

Four days in Queenstown was a lot of fun and just about the right amount of time. We flew from Queenstown to Wellington where we met Rob and Lizy Wright for dinner the first night. Rob is another one of Denny’s friends he met when golfing in Thailand. The next day Rob took us wine tasting and to a beautiful winery for lunch. The New Zealand wines are good.

After wine-tasting and seeing the town a little bit, we went back to Rob’s where he cooked mussels and perogies. After dinner, we got to reminiscing and ended up listening and singing along to the music from earlier days like Glenn Yarborough, Roger Whitaker, and the Brother’s Four. Mussels, perogies, wine and good music, how can you go wrong?

We missed Lizy, we were only able to see her the night before for dinner as she had one last seminar she went to before retiring from her job the next week.  

Onto Auckland where we had dinner with Ralph Stevenson and his wife Glennis, Ralph is another buddy of Denny’s. Our first morning there, we took a tour of the Auckland War Memorial Museum, another site we recommend if you come to New Zealand.

There is so much history about the 1^st and 2^nd World Wars and the Maori people. Especially after meeting Nehemiah, our Uber driver from earlier, who is Maori it was very interesting. I had hoped before we ever left home to see the Haka dance performed and as luck would have it, the museum tour included just that.

Surrounding the museum is a beautiful park to walk through and take pictures and a “Winter Garden.” The flowers and plants were gorgeous.   

On our last day, we took the ferry to Devonport, a small village with shops, restaurants and pubs. We found “The Patriot” an old British pub and enjoyed another glass of the delicious New Zealand wine. That evening we got a call from Ralph asking if we wanted to meet for a drink since it was our last night there. We met them at the harbor, stopped at a couple different pubs and then they asked us to come back to their house for some dinner. Ralph barbequed as we sat out on their patio looking out onto their beautiful view of the water.

We were very lucky to have had friends there which gave us a local’s tour of some of the places we went. Bob Maluga in Melbourne, and then Rob and Lizy in Wellington,. and Ralph and Glennis in Auckland.

So here we are back home in the routine of it all.  Once again home with memories to last a lifetime.

Time to get ready for Christmas.