Touring Lake Wakatipu
The century-old steam ship
When I first visited Queenstown, I was in awe of the beauty of the surrounding landscape; especially Lake Wakatipu which is home to an old steam boat, the TSS Earnslaw
The Earnslaw is a vintage 1912 Edwardian twin screw (two propeller) steamer. It is definitely the coolest small boat I’ve ever seen, and I booked a ticket for a lake trip on a whim, which turned out to be one of the best impulse buys of my life.
I was amazed to see that the ship hadn’t been converted to a modern power plant, and was still running under coal-fired steam power. I had never been in the engine room of an operating steam ship before, and was thrilled to learn that you could actually visit the engine room while it was operating, and I ended up spending most of my time on the trip around the lake there. I was mesmerized watching the fire burning in the boiler while the crew was continuously feeding it with coal.
When I eventually emerged from belowdecks, I did take some more photos of the landscape. I figured I ought to, considering that was one of the reasons I had decided to visit Queenstown in the first place!
The destination of the trip was a quaint farm in the country where we were served a wonderful meal. But just like life, this trip was more about the journey than the destination!
The final picture was taken looking back towards the farm on the return leg of the journey.