Golden Years

We completed our time in NZ with a road trip from Dunedin to Queenstown, Haast, the West Coast and Kumasi then over Arthur’s pass back to Christchurch airport where we are waiting for our flight to Tahiti. A most spectacular journey with marvellous and varied scenery. During the last ice age most of island except for a few of the highest peaks were covered in ice thousands of feet thick. Evidence of glaciation is everywhere. Most scientists agree that the ice started melting 18-20,000 years ago due to global warming.... read more

After 328km we arrived yesterday at Oamaru on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island. We spent one night at the Railway Station in Duntroon and ate dinner with Father Ted at the abandoned church. Enjoy the photos.... read more

A strong wind off the lake helped push us up the 10km, 350m climb to the Tarnbrae High point, then it was all downhill to Omarama. We did encounter a few obstacles along the way as you can see from the photos.... read more

A2O day 1 Mt Cook to Twizel Low cloud and rain forced the helicopter transfer across the Tasman river to be cancelled so we had to take a bus shuttle to the Spillway at the end of lake Pukaki to join the Alps 2 Ocean bike track. Lake Pukaki is a glacial scoured lake that has been enlarged by a dam and used to generate hydroelectric power for New Zealand. Wally, our shuttle driver, is a retired accountant who used to prepare all the financial statements for the sheep farmers in the area and acted for several of them negotiating compensation for the loss of grassing lands resulting from the higher water levels. According to Wally, the decrease in the number of sheep from 60 to 30 million resulted from low prices for wool and meat ... read more

Christchurch is still rebuilding after the devastating earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. Eighty percent of the building in downtown Christchurch were destroyed or suffered structural damage resulting in them having to be demolished. Much of the commercial and retail areas are active again but the cathedral remains as a stark reminder of the fact that New Zealand sits at the intersection of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates and as a result is subject to frequent earthquakes. Reconstruction of the cathedral is scheduled to begin in 2020 and take almost a decade to complete.... read more