Traveling: A Hard Hobbit to Break: Million Dollar Cruise

Hey there again! Life here in Queenstown is settling in. Hannah and I have both been working a lot. Hannah still has her job as a housekeeper. The temp agency that I work for has been in desperate need for housekeepers, so I've been doing that this week! The hours are long, but the money is coming in, so I can't complain! I had a day off a few days ago, and I was kinda sick of sitting on the beach (that's the last time I complain about that, I promise), I wanted to do something different! I had seen signs all over Queenstown for the Million Dollar Cruise. I went on bookme.co and I found a ticket for $20, not a bad deal at all! It was just a day cruise, but the views were amazing! There were 33 people on board, and I lowered the mean age by about 30 years, the rest were elderly couple going on a nice adventure. The captain made fun of me and over the intercom said that if anyone goes over board, the young girl from Minnesota can save them without the risk of breaking a hip...

But anyway, back to the views:

The cruise was on Lake Wakatipu, the captain gave us all sorts of fun facts about the lake. For example: the lake is 99.99% pure. It's the same as distilled water, purer than any known bottled drinking water. It's the second purest lake in the world, next to some lake in Antarctica. 1,100 years ago a glacier came through and created the lake and took out all the top soil which is why there isn't a whole lot of vegetation around the lake.

These mountains in the background are called the Remarkables. They are one of the two mountain ranges that go north to south, the other one being the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. These mountains also show up in The Lord of the Ring, they are featured as the slopes of the Dimrill Dale, which Aragorn leads the fellowship to Lothlorien after the Mines of Moira (after Gandalf "dies")