More fun rides in New ZealandWe

 We travelled around New Zealand by bus and saw many amazing views like the one above. A view of Lake Wakatipu on a sunny day.

 In addition to bus rides we were treated, one day, to a trip by land rover into the high country where "The Lord of the Rings" movies were filmed.  We drove through a shallow river, see above, panned for gold and saw several sites where the movies were filmed. One road we traveled up into a ski area, no snow while we were there, was one-lane, gravel with no guard rails.  Just steep drop offs all along the way.  We were told after we were safely back on regular roads that it is considered one of the 10 most dangerous roads in the world.

 We took the land rover trip on a cloudy day but saw lots of waterfalls.

 We also took a dinner cruise on Milford Sound and saw these seals relaxing on their rock.

Lake Wakatipu again. This is a long beautiful lake.  We seemed to be driving along its shores almost every day that we were in the south part of the south island.  We stayed in Queenstown. On one outing we road in a 100+ year old steamship (built in 1912) called the TSS Earnshaw, pictured above. It took us across the lake to Walter Park High Country Farm where we had an excellent buffet supper, then saw a very expert sheep sheering and more sheep dog drills. You may notice that I mention meals a lot.  We did eat very well on this trip.