Queenstown

September 5-7th, we visited Queenstown. We stayed with some friends of Lexie who have a B&B here and had a laid-back weekend enjoying the late-winter sunshine.

Here we are enjoying the sun and the Starbucks. Queenstown has an art fair on Saturday mornings so we checked that out. There were some slippers made from possum fur and some very beautiful copper art. We also did some shopping in town which was fun.

Then we visited Deer Park Heights which is a park with lots of deer and other animals. You can drive along to different areas and feed the animals and look around. Several of the film locations of the Lord of the Rings movies can be seen from the park as well. These donkeys were very interested in Dan.

Give me the food! At this point there were donkeys surrounding the car and one almost in it. I swear one was about to jump on the hood, but we managed to get away without losing anyone. Naughty donkeys!

The deer were much calmer than the donkeys. Red deer were first introduced into New Zealand from Scotland in 1851, today they form a major part of New Zealand's agricultural income. Venison is exported to Europe, Scandinavia and the USA, whilst velvet harvested from stags is exported to Asia and used primarily as a tonic (ew). Ha! I didn't even realize this guy stuck his tongue out at us until now. These deer were huge and several were butting heads/antlers so we didn't really want to get out and feed them at this point.