Steaming in Queenstown

The TSS Earnslaw

Yesterday we got to spend the morning wandering around Queenstown. We did a little shopping, enjoyed the beautiful day, and ate a very delicious hamburger from a famous local place called "Ferdburger" for lunch in a city park surrounded by roses and ducks. It was a wonderfully relaxing morning. The real adventure of the day came around dinnertime, when we made our way to the downtown wharf to board the TSS Earnslaw, a steamship built in 1912. Most of the boat, including the steam powered engine, is all original. You could walk into the engine room, and there was even a young man shoveling coal into the furnace. I don't think I'd want that job. The Earnslaw steamed us across Lake Wakatipu to a high country sheep farm (or "station", as the locals say), which doubles as a wonderful restaurant.

The Farm

After a very large meal of soup, salad, veggies, all manner of local meats including lamb, beef, salmon and greenlip mussels, and several deserts, we were treated to a short but very entertaining farm show. One of the best things about the show was Bess, the resident border collie and sheep master. At just a whistle from her master, she had a whole flock of sheep from what seemed like a quarter of a mile a way rounded up and standing in front of us. Amazing animal.

Bess the Wonder Dog, and master

The other best thing about the show was the sheep shearing demonstration. The farmer explained the process, showed us some old fashioned shears (which really look like torture instruments), then proceeded to shear a sheep, making hilarious (and slightly off-color) jokes about sheep nudity and rival Aussie farmers the entire time. The actual shearing probably took him three minutes. For the whole sheep.

Shearing a sheep

After the show, the Earnslaw picked us back up and steamed us back to Queenstown. It was another wonderful night on the South Island, made all the better by the history and local culture involved.

Happy Steamers on the Earnslaw

Quote of the Day: "You must be a really desperate bunch, to pay to come watch a man put clothes on..." -Farmer, as he put on his sheep-shearing gear.