These next few blogs capture the essence of my road trip from Queenstown to Auckland - March 30-Apr 6. The pictures tell the story of the everchanging landscape, crazy winding roads and the most interesting atractions along the wasy - enjoy!

Mar 30 am - off to rent my car (driving on the left again! At least it is an automatic). Before I left around 11am, I had to partake in a *Ferberger* - the most famous burger in NZ! You line up for 15 min to order (I ordered the one with blue cheese sauce), and after a 30 min wait, you can pick it up by number. I went to look at NZ wool vests and bought one on sale - its chilly here so warm things seem like a good idea - for now! I picked up my much anticipated Ferberger, and lo and behold - it was raw inside - yes raw. Boo hoo because it tasted so good and was I was hungry. So I ate around the cooked edges, enjoyed some of the fries and sadly, threw the rest away - so much for that!

I managed to get out of the city without getting lost and was on the highway - well sort of highway - there are so many twists and turns and narrow roads and one lane bridges everywhere - it takes you much longer to get anywhere then kilometers would indicate. I stopped at Maruia Falls for a break. Lesson; leave yourself lots of extra time to get from A to B to reduce frustration and dangerous driving. Concentration of driving is paramount for safety as there is no time to use the phone, could hardly turn the volume up or down on the radio. Surprised more Indy drivers are not from here!

Mar 30 pm - Arrive at Lake Tekapo. It is in the Mt. Cook National Park where Mount Cook and the Franz Josef Glacier reside. It is very mountainous here but Mount Cook stands out at 3,754m or 12,316ft high. Smallish by Western North American standards, but in context here, it is amazing. There were no hotel rooms in Mount Cook Park so I chose to stay at Lake Tekapo - 30 min away. Turned out to be a great idea as I found the Air Safari there - I booked it for the next morning - yeah. The Town was quaint and also had hot springs but I am going to Hamner Springs for that. I ordered room service which took 2 hours to come - cold but good - thank goodness I had really good NZ wine to drink! Again - cannot sweat the small stuff, the guy wouldn't even give me a discount- cheapo!

Mar 31 - Lake Tekapo Air Safari; a 45 min air tour of this stunning area. The lakes have a unique turquoise blue glacial water caused by glaciers grinding against rock to produce a fine *rock flour* that washed into the lake, causing the color. As Lake Tekapo has some of the clearest and darkest night skies in the world, it is home to the Mt John Observatory, largest telescope in the country. The Godley river from the Godley peaks is over 2km across and is criss-crossed or *braided* river channel system. Then the Sibald Range and the many glaciers - Godley, Murchison, Tasman (longest at 29km long, 800m deep and 50m annual snowfall), Franz Josef and Fox. Then the Mountains - Tasman, Cook (Aorki) La Perouse and finally past Tasman Glacier lake (the ice under the lake is over 200m thick) and to the Mackenzie basin where you can see golden tussock and grasslands which cover the glacial deposits form 14,000 years ago. A stunning ride, totally worth the $350 (oh yeah, not cheap here either!). Again I find everything Canada has squished into one-tenth the size - amazing. Take a look at my pictures!