Daru

After a couple of relaxing days in Christchurch and 28 days in NZ. We have reached the day we all dread - it's home time... Yesterday we did the Tranz Alpine train ride to Graymouth and back. It was an enjoyable day but not much different to any other train trip we did in Europe. It might be have been more special if there was snow everywhere - but most of the snow we had 2 weeks ago has melted now. It was a wonderful sunny day and we enjoyed the day sill. We spent Sunday walking the city and botanical gardens and a punt ride on the river Avon which was we romantic...... Hope everyone enjoys cup day and picks a winner. We'll miss the race as well be in the air then. We travelled ... read more

It was great to spend a few days in Queenstown. This is by far our favourite town so far. It was quiet (it would be a big party town during snow season), we had great weather (got a little sunburnt), the scenery is great - mountains, water, snow, trees a bit of everything, the food was just a good - lots of restaurants and ice-cream - Patagonia Ice-cream I think I should have brought shares in it as we seemed to gravitate to it every afternoon…. On Saturday we decided to do a leisurely 2.5 hour walk up Queenstown hill. It might be a hill to NZ standards, but not to ours. It basically went straight up the mountain, to a height of about 907M. We were higher than the Gondola that's only about 480M. The ... read more

We are now in the South Island and having a ball. We loved it when we first hit the shores and that the sun is shining it's a great change for the last few days. We change into our shorts to take advantage of the drive to Kiakoura. We stopped at a fantastic winery and had to buy a bottle of Tempranillo, stopped at a café on the beach and had lunch and watched a colony of Fur seals. The next day at Kiakoura, I went on a whale watching cruise while Menx has some Personal time to herself to read her book and have coffee and cake. The whale watching has a 98% success rate and if you don't see a whale they give you 80% of the ticket price back. Lets just say, I ... read more

We have been in NZ for 1 week now and what an eventful week it's been. We thought the North Island was supposed to be warm and the south island cool - not the case so far. Highlights so far: Auckland - Interesting city but we wanted to basically leave it. We did the Sky Deck and we found the Oldest serving pub (off course) so we had to have a beer there. Some of the parks around the town were nice to walk through. Waitomo - We stopped at Otorohanga Kiwi House so Darren could see a Kiwi - something he always wanted to see. They are bigger than I thought and they are also Nocturnal - this made taking a photo very difficult - but we tried anyway. We did the glow worm cave ... read more

Just setting up the blog and getting ready to start packing on the weekend for the New Zealand trip........ read more