Cat-dog and Orange Moon

We've known for a while that Burton has some dog-like characteristics. Recently he has taken to going for walks with us. Tonight we headed across to the beach, so Burton came too. Apologies for poor photo quality - the only camera we had was on Andrea's phone.

In the news lately they have talked about the haze down here resulting from the fires in Victoria. Although the haze during the day time was hard to capture on camera, the moon wasn't! So here's a photo of the moon on Sunday night.

Queenstown Hill

Well, we said we might find a few more hills to walk up this long weekend. It's a good thing we live in Queenstown, as hills are rather plentiful.

We hadn't yet been up Queenstown Hill so when invited to join Max, Fin and Morgan, we jumped at the chance.

At the top of the "loop track" is a sculpture commissioned for the new Millenium titled "The Basket of Dreams", seen below with the Remarkables in the background. The idea is that you sit in it and make a wish. We sat in it and had Fin take our photo, but the only wish I made was that the photo would turn out ok, and it didn't, so we aren't sure if it works that well....

We had a bite to eat and continued up to "the summit" of Queenstown Hill, which was about 20 minutes straight up from the loop track. A lovely couple out walking offered to take a photo of all of us, so here's a photo of Morgan, Max, Fin, Andrea and Greg. If you can't see Morgan, he's on Max's back!

Moke Lake

On Sunday we decided to go for a walk around Moke Lake, which is about 10 minutes drive from downtown Queenstown. It is a high country lake in a horeshoe shape in the middle of Ben Lomond and Closeburn Stations. Very picturesque in winter!

As we've heard that there are some HUGE brown trout in this lake, Greg decided to take his spinning rod along. We have been to Moke Lake a number of times, and been fishing there a number of times, but to no avail. The closest we have come to catching a trout is a half-hearted version of a "follow in" where a fish follows the lure right in (almost to your feet) but fails to take the lure. For that matter, we don't even know anyone who has personally caught a fish there!

A howling southerly was blowing on Sunday, meaning there were only a few places that were able to be fished without ending up covered in nylon fishing line. So we set off and walked to the southern end of one of the "arms" of the horseshoe. After trudging out through the swamp, Greg started casting. After about 4 casts, this happened:

If you can't tell, this is about a 7 pound brown trout. It fought long and hard, but after 15 minutes Greg won the battle and landed it. This photo was taken on Greg's phone as Andrea forgot to take the camera, and has been downloaded thanks to the card reader John Houltham bought us while he was here - thanks!!

As brown trout aren't particularly good eating, the fish was released back into Moke Lake to fight another day.

We aren't intending on going away this weekend and are going to take it easy. We'll find another hill or two to climb up maybe, but nothing more adventurous than that. We're expecting gale force winds so we probably won't get the boat out. It's been a frustratingly windy summer, but hopefully it will all settle down in another month.

Winter Season passes for skiing and snowboarding go on sale next week - roll on winter!

Sunset

We told you you'd get sick of sunset photos! Photo taken from upstairs main guest room

It's been a busy weekend. On Friday the owner of the empty section next door came by to let us know that the council have asked them to clear the section due to fire risk. It will be cleared in about a month, and the large Douglas Fir trees were also going to come down. Being the enterprising people we are, we asked if we could fell the trees prior to the section being cleared and claim the firewood. The owner had no problem with this, so we had a chat to the neighbours on the other side and came up with a deal for us to take 2 of the trees and them to take the other 2.

So we spent our Saturday felling the trees, removing the limbs (and stacking them tidily for removal - one of the conditions of us taking the firewood), then cutting to size all the rings, splitting the firewood, and throwing it over the fence. And then stacking it all up!

We have collected all of our firewood for winter 2009 from various places that shall remain un-named for reasons of firewood-stash-preservation!

We now have around 13 cubic metres of firewood, which should see us through with some left over. We are both very happy about this, as it means we might stop smelling like pine gum some time before winter starts. Also if we collect any more firewood we're going to have to find a new place to stack it - the clothesline is already being compromised!

The photo below is of the "outside stash" - we also have a nice big pile in the garage.

How many donkeys can you fit in a car?

All of them, apparently.....

While Andrea's Uncle Tony, his partner Kaz, his two sons Tuata and Iwi, and Andrea's Mum and Dad were all here in Queenstown we decided to take a drive up Deer Park Heights. This is the hill up behind Kelvin Heights (where we live) and although it is less than 3 minutes drive from home, we'd never been there. The views up the top were great, but the best part was probably the animals. The donkeys seen above were attempting to eat their way through everything in Kaz's car in an attempt to get at the tin of animal pellets (which can be purchased for $2).

The wide range of animals able to be fed was spectacular, with everything from Llamas to Himalayan Thar to Elks, Bisons, Yaks and of course Deer. The Elk in particular was a sight to be seen, standing nearly 7 feet tall, 300 kg, and only a few cm from the car window. He was a bit of a show-off really.

Feeding the animals was a highlight, especially for the kids (being very careful to keep hands flat to make sure fingers and pellets are kept apart).

Tuata feeding a Llama:

Everyone feeding the Himalayan Thar:

It was well worth the $20 a car it costs to head up there, with views to rival the gondola and exotic animals to top it all off!

Hard Yakka

If you've ever wondered what's behind the hills that surround Queenstown.... the answer is..... more hills.

We've said goodbye to all our guests, having enjoyed the time with all of them. In our first "free" weekend for quite some time we decided to climb the Ben Lomond track. This is the hill that can be seen from our house, up behind the Gondola. This photo was taken from our house (back in Winter, obviously! Ben Lomond is the taller of the two peaks you can see, the one on the left).

Upon reaching the top, we don't know which of the two following photos shows the view we were more pleased to see:

We have to admit that after the steep climb, we were both temporarily more interested in the park bench than the view. Unfortunately it started drizzling slightly when we got to the top so the view wasn't as good as it can be on a brilliantly sunny day. We were grateful for the lack of hot sun though!

Christmas Break

We flew into Auckland on Christmas Eve to spend 6 days with our families. Most days were spent at the beach as it's the one thing we don't have here in Queenstown. It was great to catch up with everyone and mishaps were kept to a minimum - once Andrea's luggage turned up (via Christchurch and Wellington) a few hours late.

We flew back out on the 30th of December and have had a few days to ourselves since then. We had a quiet New Year's Eve with a few neighbours which was nice and relaxing.

On the 3rd we took a hike up Wye Creek as it's one of the open hunting areas in the Wakatipu basin. We got about 3/4 of the way up the main track and then headed out across the front face of the Remarkables. It was quite steep and hard going at times, but good exercise. We saw a lot of deer sign and Greg is looking forward to heading up there with a gun once peak tourist season is over. Hunting is not allowed close to the main track, and at the moment there are so many people around that the deer are all in hiding.

This waterfall is about halfway up the track.

Andrea's Uncle Tony and his sons are arriving sometime today and her parents arrive on Saturday, so it will be all go for the next few weeks. Hopefully the weather will pick up a little for the guests as at present we have gale force winds and have had snow on the hills a few times in the past week and a half. Not exactly summery! Here's hoping it's a sign of things to come for the ski season.....