Queenstown

I'm going to start today's post by telling you about something that Jeanne just shared with me. The moon today is closer to us than it has been for a very long time.  This is the site that Jeanne sent me.

https://earthsky.org/space/closest-new-moon-since-the-middle-ages-1337-years/

I had also learned from a YouTube video, that Saturn and Venus would appear very close to one another last night, in our western sky just after sundown.  I was planning to take pictures, hoping to get one at high magnification, with both planets visible, similar to the one I took of our Moon and Jupiter, with four of its moons also visible.  

Unfortunately, our cloud cover was almost 100% at that time and I got nothing at all. I'll watch again tonight but since the planets move constantly relative to one another, Saturn and Venus will certainly appear farther apart and my chance for a really close-up, dual photo will have been missed.  Oh well,  I'll keep watching and waiting for my next opportunity, but you may have a chance to see them yet.  Take a look.    

Now, back to pictures from the South Island of New Zealand. We have just arrived in Queenstown.  

This is just outside town.

Our hotel

The view to the left of our balcony.

The view looking straight out from our balcony. 

To the right.  

A giant sequoia that was planted in 1874 grows in downtown Queenstown.  

This picture didn't turn out so well.  The sign says that this is a pounamu stone. It's also called greenstone or New Zealand jade.  

Toward the center of town

Queenstown is a very touristy sort of place.  One of the attractions is this cable car ride.  Unfortunately, building it necessitated cutting a very unsightly gash through the trees of this mountain.  We didn't take the ride.  

It's very overcast today, so all my pictures lack a certain liveliness that the sun would have provided.  Still, I liked this place a lot and sat for a while, watching the crowds pass by and shop in the dozens of trendy little shops that circled this square. (and the rest of the town)  

Touristy towns can be fun, but they can also be a bit tiresome.  We were planning that I would walk over and buy a takeaway lunch at the 'famous' Fergburger place several blocks away and return to eat it at our leisure.  However, I was advised by some members of our tour group that I happened to meet who were just coming from Fergburger, that the wait time to get into the place was already 1/2 an hour.  I wasn't willing to invest that kind of time into buying lunch, however exciting the hype surrounding this local delicacy, and popped into a nearby KFC instead.  

To us, the main attraction of the town were the mountains that surrounded it.  We sat spellbound on our balcony, sometimes with a refreshing beverage, and watched always changing vistas as the clouds came and went.  I won't show you many photos here. but it was enthralling, take my word for it, especially after a couple of beverages. 

We used our time in Queenstown to rest up a bit.  There is lots more coming.   -djf

And, for those of you who might wonder what constitutes a Fergburger, I offer you this link.

https://fergburger.com/