Kind Acts of Randomness

First day back after the holiday today and my first task of the day... a toastmasters talk. What was I thinking of doing my final talk (Exercise 10 - The Inspirational Talk) the day after a holiday? I'd planned to prepare the talk while I was away but just didn't get any time.... so as usual I winged it. Put about 35 slides together of my holiday for a 10 minute talk. [Read More]

Christchurch - Gold Coast Last day. Pretty sad, but we are ready for home. Returned the van with hardly a scratch. They were impressed I hadn't had a bump (apparently this is quite rare!). Then off to the airport for our flight. The kids were so good. Jaron is now a cool calm and collected air traveller and took it all in his stride, even snoozing during takeoff. [Read More]

Little River - Akaroa - Christchurch Our final full day in New Zealand. It's a little sad, but we have a beautiful place to spend our last day. Akaroa is quite stunning, great scenery and the township itself is rather interesting. Had a big French influence as the French set up a colony here in very early settler days (despite the darn British beating them to the peninsula and plonking their flag in first). [Read More]

Lake Pukake - Lake Tekapo - Little River Spent some time this morning at the Salmon Farm that we were staying at - fed the King Salmon which the kids enjoyed. I'm usually quite wary of fish farms, but this looks to be a really good one. Highest altitude Salmon farm on earth, the fish get a good workout due to the fast flowing water and the water quality is as good as it get's. [Read More]

Curio Bay - Invercargill - Catlins - Dunedin Set off from Curio Bay around the South Coast, destination - "The Catlins", an area that had been recommended to us by a few people. First we had to go through Invercargill though, which I'd been told by someone was "The Arse-End of NZ" - so didn't have high expectations. It turned out quite a nice city - the city planner had put in very wide streets when it was gazetted which makes for a nice place. [Read More]

Dunedin - Muraki Boulders - Oamaru Dunedin is lovely - the centre has some beautiful stone colonial buildings and it doesn't seem to "sprawl" to badly as I've seen in a lot of cities around the world. Parked up at the Railway Station (which is one of the best buildings in city in itself) as a base to do a bit of city exploring (which we haven't done much of since Christchurch). [Read More]

Oamaru - Lake Pukake I really like Oamaru... it's got a really nice feel about it. I think it used to be a big port - but a lot of the industry died away. It could easily have gone the way of Westport but it seems to have created a nice little arts scene for itself and has retained and maintained a lot of it's old buildings. We headed for the Whitestone Cheese Factory and bought a load of stuff (I am munching on crackers with their Waitaki Camembert as I write this - yum). [Read More]

Manapoura - Curio Bay Heading for the South Coast now and the road getting very quiet, lots of little stops today, one that was a nice surprise was Monkey Island (not related to computer game and sadly no monkeys there) kids loved this little island and we ended up having a nice lunch there. Then onwards around the south coast - lots of really impressive windswept trees, we wanted to stop to take pictures but the kids were sleeping nicely so - ONWARD. [Read More]

Manapoura - Curio Bay Heading for the South Coast now and the road getting very quiet, lots of little stops today, one that was a nice surprise was Monkey Island (not related to computer game and sadly no monkeys there) kids loved this little island and we ended up having a nice lunch there. Then onwards around the south coast - lots of really impressive windswept trees, we wanted to stop to take pictures but the kids were sleeping nicely so - ONWARD. [Read More]

Queenstown - Te Anau - Milford Sound A big drive today (and start of a bit of an Internet blackout) - we decided to drive straight through to Milford Sound so we can get an early boat in the morning and beat the crowds (and not get stuck behind 10 coaches) Queenstown - Te Anau was a beautiful drive - Carla picked the timing of our trip to perfection and all the wild flowers are out in full force. [Read More]