The Stewart family are about to head off on their first family vacation abroad. Ned, Cam and the five kids - Max, Hannah, Beth, Angus and little Eadie. Wish us luck!
Well the final stages of the trip have been very exciting and full of all those tourist things you do with kids a s well as some not so tourist things. I would have to say the latter were more onjoyable. I think sometimes you have to just follow your nose and see where you end up. Our next leg was from Wellington up towards Napier. We headed off hoping to get up the coast early. NO! On the way we stoped at Masterton to refuel both the our bellies. Well not to be. We found the most amazing park there and didnt want to leave. The kids had a ball. So this put a delay on our arrival time at our next stopover- Waimarama. Wish we had come to this place earlier or stayed longer. ... read more
Well there is alot to tell. Have travelled a distance over the last few days and had a fantastic time. Of course we have had a few melt downs on each of the kids behalf but all in all everyone is great. Beth has recovered from her 24 hour vomiting runny bum bug and is catching up on her eats. She also had a fall up at one of the lookouts and managed to smash the lens on her camera. She was devastated as she has been one of our chief phototgraphers on the trip so far. So with both max and Beths cameras down its up to hannah and me. Now if I can just get Han to take a photo of something else other than Eadie we may have a nice collection. Still trying ... read more
Well since Leaving queenstown we have been to a few different places. After having a lovely stay in Cromwell visiting old Cromwell town and driving out to bendigo for an Ice cream and viewing the fleece of the famous sheep shrek we left for glacier country. Unfortunately for us that bad weather we found in te anau decided to follow us. We arrived in fox glacier accompanied by rain. So we went with it and walked the glacier anyway. Let's just say we were quite wet when returned to the van. We stopped the night at frans Josef to dry out and spent this morning out for awalk to see the frans Josef glacier. What a wonderous site. A favourite of the trip so far. We moved on next to hokitiki to have lunch by the ... read more
Well we finally hit the adrenalin capital and Max's eyes nearly popped out of his head. He wanted to do it all and he wanted to do it that day. We informed him that were things there that he would not be doing but would let him do the jetboat ride. So Cam and Max went on the experience and had an absolute ball. Meanwhile myself and the rest of the kids found the most beautiful park by the water and had a play there. Beth has been the social butterfly of the trip so far palling up with alittle girl on the plane over, another little girl on the boat trip we went on yesterday(from melbourne) and then a little south African boy named Rourk. The two of them had a fantastic time playing and ... read more
Today cam had to spend the day at the university so Ned and the kids decided to take a trip out to the otago peninsula to visit the aquarium run by the marine biologist from the uni. The trip was certainly interesting. The road was probably wide enough for 1 1/2 cars and went along a sheer cliff face for most of it with a bit of rope protecting you from going over. GREAT!!! Therefore my speed limit was about 30km so the kids got a good look at the scenery. Once there we had alovely time with the place all to ourselves. We went in a pretend submergeable saw a giant squid and played in the fantastic touch pools. After we had some morning tea we set off for Larnach Castle. The kids loved this ... read more
Well day1 of the official Stewart tour of NZ began today. After an interesting night of sleep with Gus falling out of his bed and ending up in with me and CAm getting the boot Into the single bed there wAs a Big sleep in this morning especially by Beth who got up around 10.30 NZ time. Went into town today to get supplies for the week. Cam had a meeting at the uni and afterwards we returned home to an afternoon of footy on the lawn overlooking the bay then when it begAn to get insanely cold an evening of DVDs in front of the heater. Cam had his talk in at the uni this evening and upon his return we have enjoyed some dinner and a glass or two of Nz pinot Gris. A ... read more
Well 5 of the bags are packed only two remain-ours!! Kids are very xctd and are finding the wait a little hard. I myself need to just get on that plane and relax for a few hours. You can relax on a plane with 5 kids can't you? Especially when you have two of them under 2. That first glass of cold nz sav blanc is going to go down very nicely indeed! Let you know how the flight goes! The partridge family!... read more