Blogs from Mount Cook National Park, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 15

An Unbelieveable Helicopter Flight! First, for those of you who checked yesterday for our blog update and didn't see it, we apologize. The hotel we overnighted at in Christchurch, The George, had a wireless network that was not functioning. This will happen from time to time so be patient and keep checking back. We will update each day whe we have Internet access. Today, our last day in New Zealand, was a wonderful day. We left Queenstown before sunrise at about 7:30am on a bus with a driver, an assistant and us! Guess it pays to go off season at times. Temp was a nippy 27 degrees F. We traveled north along the west coast of New Zealand skirting the Southern Alps until we came to Mt. Cook were we headed up the slope towards the ... read more

Mount Cook Australasia » New Zealand » South Island » Mount Cook By trav dhJune 9th 2007Next stop was Mount Cook (highest mountain in Australasia). Unsuprisingly we didn't climb it! It had snowed a few days before we arrived and there was still snow on the ground when we got there. We walked up to the bottom of two glaciers, Hooker and Tasman. The Hooker was a far better walk as we had to cross two swing bridges and navigate snow covered paths on the way. ... read more

Writing about Thursday I am losing count of when I last did the blog so I think I had just had the van delivered on Wednesday and had a trip over the Banks Peninsula to try her out. Planning the days and trying to get to see as much of this lovely country as I can, I have decided to see if I can have Betty for an extra couple of days and then spend a bit of extra time here in the South Island. There is a Trans Alpine Highway from Christchurch to the West coast going via Arthur’s Pass (924m)so I made that my trip on Thursday - I had in mind to do a walk there- having brought my walking boots all this way I thought I better use them!!! There are not ... read more

alweer een tijdje gelden dat ik een berichtje heb achter gekaten..drukdrukdruk! goed, na Akaroa (was zo cool om iedereen weer terug te zien. kreeg meteen weer joboffers maar helaas..ik was er alleen om even gedag te zeggen1) weer terug naar Christchurch gegaan waar Paul nog bij de mensen verbleef die ons gratis verblijf hadden aangeboden. hij had zn auto inmiddels verkocht! (vraag me niet hoe..je was beter af om 2 gaten erin te maken a la mr Flinstone..) maar goed..wist die japanner veel...ohhhhhhhh :P gekeken voor goedkope huurauto om dan eindelijk mt cook te gaan bezoeken..'special price for us?'...euhmz..nope..naar visitor centre gegaan, aardige mevrouw die erg blij was met haar handsfree telephone set heeft ons na 10 telefoontjes een goede deal kunnen geven..40 dollar voor mt cook en lake tekapo (normaal 90) in een coachbus (jaja, ... read more

We managed to work our way out of Christchurch without incident and set off on H73 to our next destination, Twizel (pronounced Twyzel). We were taking the scenic route there which took alittle longer put promised better landscape and less traffic. So far so good with the whole left hand driving but what was harder than staying on the correct side of the street was having your steering wheel on the right side of the car. We were constantly hugging the shoulder and not staying centered in the lane. Also, the rearview mirror was pretty much useless as you naturally look right and always use the side mirror instead. This highway took us through more green pastures and rolling hills. It was too bad that the weather had turned grey and drizzly as it took away ... read more