Countdown to New Zealand

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Well, finally it's almost time to leave on our epic voyage to NZ. We have planned to do this for so long that it seems really weird, and still quite unreal that on Friday we'll actually be on our way. We (Denise and Eric) are flying to Auckland to spend 5 days on North Island, before travelling on to Christchurch where hopefully we will meet up with Alan and Ralph, who are unable to join us until the following week. We will then spend 2 weeks travelling around South Island, spending Christmas in Queenstown, before returning to UK on New Year's Day.

The focus of our trip is the family celebrations for direct descendants from around the world on Dec 15th/16th to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Eric's great great grandfather there as the first bishop of Christchurch. As he had a large number of offspring, there will be many relations to meet, most of them for the first time, but a few we have met previously here in the UK. This will be our first trip to NZ, despite Eric having been an NZ citizen until he was 21. Apart from meeting the family, we have a huge wish list of places to visit, sights to see and a multitude of activities planned to scare the boys witless and bankrupt the parents!

So now it just remains to post the Christmas cards, stock up with food for Boris ( the cat) and Grandma, who is house sitting, give the boys their joining instructions, load up the ipod for the l o n g journey (if I receive it in time from Amazon!). Christmas will certainly be different this year!

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Photos

Harpers 2005
Denise, Eric (oldies), Alan(back)and Ralph