Kind Acts of Randomness

Queenstown. A day of action (and our highest budget day!). It's amazing what you can fit into a day when you put you're mind to it and hat's off to Carla for organising lots of really cool things for us. Quick summary: Carla and Jaron on the Shotover Jet Boat. They loved it - even Carla the scare-de-cat! Boat trip on the TSS Earnshaw to Walter Peak Highland farm. [Read More]

Wanaka - Arrowtown - Queenstown On our way out of Wanaka today we checked out Puzzling World. It's a great place to visit if you have kids or geeks like me in the family. Lots to see and the guy that started this place (Stuart Landsborough) has really gone to a lot of effort to get this place right.... very impressed. Had a go in the maze afterwards but only got 1 tower as Jaron was getting a little overexcited and just ended up running around aimlessly. [Read More]

Fox Glacier - Wanaka Started the day with a Hike to Fox Glacier. The smaller of the 2 glaciers here in NZ - but you can get closer easier. It's about an hour walk - and it got really hot (didn't help that I carried Keira most of the way). The view at the end is pretty good for a short walk. Met some Brits on the trail (from Burnley) and they were disappointed - apparently in Europe they are much bigger and you can get right up to them. [Read More]

Franz Josef Glacier - Fox Glacier One thing I've never done in my life is fly in a helicoptor. I've been secretly wanting to fly over the Franz Josef for a while (sorry to all my green friends - I know this is probably not very environmentally friendly, but I am on a driving holiday here - so I'll use up all my credits here and be good next year). [Read More]

Greymouth - Hokatika - Ross - Franz Josef Glacier A lot of driving today and a certain child was pretty naughty today so lots of very little stops and driving driving driving. Hokatika is a nice little town, we stopped for diesel and drove right on. Next was Ross, we stopped there because our friend Trevor Ross from NZ recommended it and the local pub. In no mood to do this though so we had a quick look around the gold mining museum before another meltdown (the children kind, not forging gold or anything). [Read More]

Cape Foulwind - Pancake Rocks - Greymouth Backtracked a bit to Taranga Bay where the Seal Colony was. Seal pups just being born around this time of the year - so was pretty cool to see a few of the little ones are about. The viewing platform are right out of the way of them, so people can't get too close and disrupt them like we have seen elsewhere. [Read More]

Neudorf-Lake Rotaroa-Buller Gorge-Westport-Cape Foulwind. Crazy day. It started so calmly though - with a nice walk around the farm before we set off. We were heading for Westport area, but did a lot on the way (FYI - we often stop at a few other places, but I am just mentioning the main ones for brevity)  Lake Rotoroa was great - nice and quite and stunning views over the lake with snow capped mountains in the background. [Read More]

Nelson-Kaiteriteri-Neudorf. Ok, I'm a little behind, so I'm play quick catchup. Quick change of plan (our travel plans have been very Agile, lots of emerging requirements) and we've gone up towards Able Tasman NP on recommendation of a friend. Didn't quite make it all the way into the park, but did get to an awesome beach town called Kaiteriteri. Beautiful little spot. I kept thinking that I was up at Palm Beach, Sydney or somewhere like that - the sand was similar, and looks like there's some pretty nice mansions on the hillside. [Read More]

Blenheim-Picton-Nelson. Big day today - we started in Blenheim retracing some of Carla's childhood steps. Found her old school (but old house didn't seem to be there anymore) and the place where here Dad worked (they've expanded a bit!), then off to Picton. Not a massive amount for us to do in Picton drove through the town, saw a big protest march - people not happy about the Marina being expanded, sounds like some developers are going to stuff up a waterway again. [Read More]

Kaikoura - Blenheim. Carla always comments that we don't take enough pictures of her, so today's photo is of my lovely wife with the Seaward Kaikoura Range in the background.  Had a little more of a walk around the other side of the Kaikoura peninsula - just a short one, we are pretty limited with our walks at the moment with a 2 year old. Picked up a hitch-hiker on the way back into town - a Frenchman we had said hi to earlier. [Read More]