Wilderness Safari and Jet Boat Ride

On our third day in Queenstown, we took an excursion to Glenorchy with a Maori native who showed us around this remote area and explained where many different movies have been filmed, most notably the Lord of the Rings. The first part of the tour was along dirt roads (if you can call them that) in a four wheel drive vehicle through plains and wooded areas. After this tour, we boarded a jet boat and zoomed along the beautiful waterways taking in the mountainous vistas around us.

Students - check out these reconstructed Maori shelters below. The Maori natives lived very similarly to the Iroquois we studied this year. They used everything in their surroundings to survive.



These are some of the spectacular views we saw from our jet boat ride. By the way, the jet boat ride was thrilling, as it can travel on a minimum of 4" of water at breakneck speeds. It also can do a 360 degree turn, which was a riot.









You may recognize this next picture, since it was the opening scene for the second movie from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers. This is the scene where Gandalf fights and defeats the Balrog on the mountain top. This mountain is named Mount Pluto.



That night, we took a cruise on Lake Wakatipu on the TSS Earnslaw. This vessel is a steamship powered by coal, see the inside of the engine below. This ship set sail the same year as the Titanic (fortunately it is still afloat).