Day 1 – Monday 30 March

My cousin Zsuzsika & her husband Roberto were doing a tour in NZ. We decided to visit the Land of the Long White Clouds again & meet up with them for three days at Queenstown, NZ. We were leaving on the 29/3 from home & unfortunately they had to cut their tour short & rush back to Florida on the same day because Roberto’s mum got very sick. We are sad but also glad that we were inspired to come back to NZ.

We left home a day earlier to see the opera on the Harbour. After booking in at the Rydges Airport Motel we caught the train to Circular Quay & from there a water taxi to the venue. A perfect balmy Sydney night. We saw a spectacular Handa opera production of “Aida” by Giuseppe Verdi on Sydney Harbour, with the Opera House, Harbour Bridge & Sydney City as a backdrop. It was fantastic, after the show we caught the return train back to the airport. Staying at the Rydges overnight made it a very easy & short walk to the departure terminal for our flight to Queenstown this morning.

We had a storm that closed Sydney Airport when we were in the plane queued up to take off so we were delayed a bit until the storm passed, then it was a relatively short 3 & a bit hour flight before flying through the mountains & landing at Queenstown. The weather was lovely sunny 19C. Our hire car was upgraded to a Toyota Corolla & we enjoyed a very pleasant drive from Queenstown over the Crown Range Road, with its many steep bends & spectacular mountain scenery, to Wanaka & our motel.

Lake Wanaka has the Mount Aspiring National Park as a backdrop & is very beautiful, from our motel room balcony we can see snow on some of the peaks. It is only a short walk to the lake, the shopping centre & restaurants from our motel. We enjoyed a nice walk along the foreshore to stretch our legs & loosen up the muscles from our flight & drive. A nice dinner at the Trout Restaurant, sitting outside in the setting sunshine looking over the lake was the perfect way to enjoy our first evening in New Zealand.