Jacob's New Zealand Pictures - Spring Break

South of Hamilton, heading to Wellington



Near Otaki, north of of Wellington. I heard that part of the "leaving the shire" scene of Lord of the Rings was filmed in this area.



View of the south island from the Wellington Picton ferry



Just inside the Marlborough Sound - taken from the ferry.



The beech forest near lake Rotoiti, south of Nelson. I had a nice hike here.



Above the treeline, above lake Rotoiti.



You can just barely see Franz Josef glacier up in the valley. It used to come way past this lake.



Fox Glacier. Fox and Franz Josef glaciers come closer to the ocean than any other glacier this close to the equator.



View of Mt Aspiring across Lake Wanaka - it's one of the tallest mountains in NZ at 3027m.



My car. This picture was taken on the way to a ski resort high above Queenstown.



Queenstown






Cruising across lake Manupaori on the way to Doubtful Sound



View of Doubtful Sound while crossing the pass between lake Manupaori and the Sound



Doubtful Sound



View from the hut where we stayed the first night on Stewart Island.



It gets real muddy on stewart island, so they've boardwalked all the muddy sections. Sometimes we'd be hiking on boardwalk for miles at a time - makes for easier walking, although the boards can be slick.



An albatross at the only mainland albatross colony in the world, near Dunedin. There were 3 adults flying around and a bunch of younger ones sitting around. Their wingspan is about 3 meters!



Taken on the coast between Dunedin and Christchurch - I didn't see any penguins here. There's only blue penguins at this place, and they don't come back to their nests until just after dark.



An oystercatcher. Usually you see these running around on the beach, but at certain times of the year they go way up into the mountains, where I saw this one.



I can't figure out what this animal was - it looked like a coyote/dog, but its ears were really long. Anybody know?



This is Mt Sunday, west of Christchurch near Mt Somers. It's where they filmed the Edoras in Lord of the Rings. About 45 minutes of the drive in was on gravel roads, which made for slow going. The scenery was great though!



View from the top of Mt Sunday. You can barely see where my car is, next to the road at the top of the picture. I couldn't see any of those streams from where I parked, so I didn't wear my gaiters. Obviously, I got a little wet, and the water was a bit cold since it was all fresh snowmelt! Oh well, I needed to clean all that stewart island mud off anyway.



View from the top of Mt Sunday



Another view from Mt Sunday



More from Mt Sunday



There were just so many good views all around the mountain, it was hard to stop taking pictures!



Looking northwest, with Christchurch in the foreground and the southern Alps in the distance.



Looking southwest from the Kaikoura peninsula north of Christchurch. It was about 65-70 degrees this day, and it felt so warm and tropical, yet there were these huge snowcovered mountains so close by. The mountains north of Kaikoura come so close to the water it reminded me of Doubtful Sound.


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