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Queenstown, New Zealand
Wednesday, December 5, Tom and
Pam flew down from Sydney to Melbourne to pick us up for the
flight to Queenstown, New Zealand. Their arrival was delayed
due to an eighty knot headwind and we didn't depart Melbourne
until around 11:00 AM. Our first leg (second for Tom and Pam)
was for fuel in Hobart, Tasmania (an island province of Australia).
The approach was very scenic with mountains, lakes, and trees
as far as you could see. It is a very large island, actually
many islands, with a population of only 500,000 people.
We landed at about 12:40 PM to
discover that someone in Hobart had dropped the ball and there
was no one there from customs to clear us out of the country.
We then proceeded to wait for two hours for someone to show
up. We were finally airborne at about 2:45 PM (4:45 PM New
Zealand time) with a four hour flight across the Tasmania
Sea ahead of us. The Tuesday repairs had held the airplane
in Sydney until Wednesday morning and that delayed our departure
from Melbourne by two hours. Now the mix up with customs had
delayed us another two hours. That meant that our arrival
would not be until 8:00 PM. The bad news was that the tower
was supposed to be closed by that time which means that we
would have to try a VFR landing in a very mountainous area
at an airport that neither of our pilots has ever seen and
probably with heavy cloud cover.
By 7:30 PM, the crew was on the
radio with the Queenstown tower. Apparently, they had stayed
late for our arrival. If they had not been there to give us
the approach altitudes, we probably would have had to divert
to another airport. (Ashley's insert: When the tower asked
us how many people were on board, I knew we might be in trouble,
so I reached for Pat's hand, and we smiled at each other with
our own thoughts…) We broke through the clouds at about 5,000
feet to a breath-taking view of the beautiful mountains all
around us.
After a rather lengthy customs
check, we were on our way to the Millbrook Resort in Arrowtown,
New Zealand, about a twenty-minute drive. We would spend four
nights here and it turned out to be one of our favorite stops
of the entire journey. We played three rounds of golf on their
Bob Charles designed course. In the first round, Tom won the
front, I won the back, and we tied the eighteen. In the second
round, Tom beat me like a drum, front, back, and eighteen.
I didn't play badly but Tom had dialed in the layout and played
very well. For the third round, we invited the girls to join
us for a couple's scramble and Ashley and I won a free dinner
by one hole.
The only time we saw the sun
was Friday afternoon (the first time in over a week) and we
were able to take a helicopter ride over the snowy mountains
to Milford Sound. That ride was spectacular, truly one of
the highlights of the trip. It took about three hours and
we had champagne and toasted our friends and family back home
at a glacial lake looking at a dramatic waterfall. The only
problem was to select which photos to put on the web site.
By the way, the pictures you see on the site are only a few
of those taken. I have now taken over one thousand photos,
all of which are stored on my hard drive!
We had lunch in Arrowtown on
Saturday at the Stables Restaurant that was built in 1860
and is one of the oldest buildings in the area. We were fortunate
to have Jo Cook as our waitress. She had a fabulous story
to tell. She had ridden horseback the entire length of the
Continental Divide from the Canadian border to the Mexican
border. It took her, her horse, two packhorses, and a dog
eight months to complete the adventure. She told a story about
a blizzard that lasted for three days. She said a ghostly
figure in a shroud led her out of danger. She is convinced
that it was her guardian angel. She said as a result of her
experiences she became a Christian and that her life had changed
completely. She is writing a book called "Carry a Gun, Don't
Cry, and Don't Quit".
Our next stop is Wellington,
New Zealand where we will be flown by helicopter to a sheep
station for two nights. Following that we are on to Auckland,
New Zealand where we are hoping to enjoy some golf or boating
with Peter Little and his family. We are looking forward to
meeting them, having heard so many nice things about them
by our dear Kiwi friend Susan Roberton. Susan lives in Scottsdale,
Arizona and has just received her United States citizenship.
Congratulations Susan!
Till next time,
Pat
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