New Zealand 2016 - South Island

On April 7th we flew to Dunedin, picked up our rental car, which went very smoothly, not like the last time and headed to Te Anau.  The country reminded us a lot of the Sun Valley area in Idaho.  It was amazing to see and made us very homesick for home!

Left the airport and heading to Te Anue.  Country reminded us of the Sun Valley area in Idaho.

The green pastures with the sheep always looked so beautiful.

Elder Murdock is enjoying some buff oysters.  Looked very disgusting to Sister Murdock!

Here is Sister Murdock's meal, her first good steak and shrimp since leaving Tonga!

This is on our way to Milford Sound.  The mountains were amazing!

This little lake was called Mirror Lake.  As you can see why!

This is Lake Gunn, so beautiful with all the pine covered mountains!

Another look at Lake Gunn.

The mountains were so amazing.  Each bend in the road brought another beautiful sight to behold!

Another stop to see the mountains on our way to Milford Sound.

This is at the head of Milford Sound.  We went for a walk along the water.

This is also at the head of Milford Sound.

Here is our boat that we will be taking our tour of Milford Sound on.

A beautiful waterfall in Milford Sound.

Looking back at the head of Milford Sound.

All along the way there were waterfalls coming from the glaciers.

The mountain cliffs were so straight up and very tall.

More water falls.

This one was unique with the rainbow!

This is taken from the top of our tour boat looking back at some of the waterfalls.

Here is an attempt of a slefie by Sister Murdock.

Here our tour guide is taking us under the waterfall.  Thankfully we had our raincoats on.  It was a little cold and wet!

On our way back to the head of Milford Sound we encountered seals sunning themselves on the rocks.  We were hoping to see dolphin and penguins, but we were informed that they are on the east coast this time of year.

Another beautiful water fall!

The mountains were so beautiful and huge!

Here is a field full of deer.  They raise them here.  Maybe this is where Elder Murdock's meal was from he ate the other night.

Our next stop was in Queenstown.  Sister Murdock "willingly" rode the gondola with Elder Murdock.  This was the pictures that Elder Murdock took as Sister Murdock could not look!

Another view of Queenstown from the top of the Gondola platform.  So very beautiful.

Sister Murdock had to keep her back to the sight to have this picture taken.  It was pretty scary to her!

More views of Queenstown from the Gondola platform.

Also at the top was a luge ride.  We kept thinking how much our grand kids and our children would love this!

This was a world map made out of jelly-belly jellybeans.

While in Queenstown we went on a steamship to a place for a dinner and tour of the sheep ranch at Ben Lomond Scenic Reserve on Lake Wakatipu.

Here we are heading into the Ranch House where we will have our dinner.  it was very beautiful with flowers everywhere.  We had a wonderful meal!

This is a picture of the steamboat that we just got off.  It was very unique.

On the tour this gentlemen sheared a sheep for us and gave us some history of sheep ranching.

Here the poor thing is naked!

On Sunday we went for a drive to see the country and came upon this beautiful field of cattle.

This is a view of Lake Wakatipu from the road that we were driving down.  So very beautiful!

Here another field of sheep.  The pictures just do not do it justice to see these white animals in the beautiful green fields.

This is some of the scenes we found on our drive to Christchurch.  It was amazing to see the fall colors in the leaves of the trees.

More fall colors of the trees.

The sign called this Roaring Meg.  We were expecting much larger falls than this, but it was still nice.

Here we are in Christchurch and Elder Murdock liked to find the highest mountain to drive on for the wonderful views.

This is an inlet of the ocean with this little town nestled next to it.  We were again on top of a very high mountain.

Here we are overlooking Christchurch.

This is in Christchurch.  There was a wonderful walking path along the beach.

This was New Brighton Pier in Christchurch.  Very nice beaches, but it was very cold!

There was an Air Force Museum that we went to see.  It was not as big as Hill Air Force Base's.

Some of the planes on display.

They had a helicopter on display as well.

This is another high mountain that we found while driving to see the area.  It overlooked this inlet from the ocean.

Another view from this high mountain.  Sister Murdock was a little nervous as it was very high!

"We should feel gratitude of our circumstances.  I have thought sometimes that one of the greatest virtues the Latter-day Saints could possess is gratitude to our Heavenly Father for that which He has bestowed upon us and the path over which He has led us."     Lorenzo Snow