The Grand South Island Tour - Autumn 2021

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Planning a holiday, when you are independent travellers, can often take longer than the holiday trip itself and the upcoming Grand South Island Tour fits this absolutely.

Mind you planning is always mixed with anticipation and this is really what makes travel such a wonderful experience.

We love the anticipation and honestly can’t get enough of it.

Not that this trip will take us to exotic places with names one has difficulty in pronouncing.

Rather it will be a trip down memory lane in many respects but with some places added in that we have never visited before or just previously passed through.

Now that is an awful admission for us, as for many years we had told people, who were interested in our travels that ,yes, we had seen all New Zealand had to offer and that was why for the last 20 or so years our holidays had been to Europe,USA/Canada,Africa and many places in between.

Well actually we hadn’t seen all New Zealand had to offer and that is why this time we are taking in the far flung off shore island of Stewart Island. Actually Stewart Island is only about 50km from Invercargill, the southernmost city in New Zealand, but it can be a hell of a place to get to. As Gretchen states, it is either an hour or so by ferry on what can be a very rough strait or less than 20 minutes by air at 1000 feet where every seat is a window seat! We are opting for the flight but more about that as our trip progresses.

We are starting out in Christchurch and heading north to the Marlborough Sounds, then south via Nelson, the West Coast, Queenstown and onto Stewart Island before we return to Christchurch via the middle of the South Island through Lawrence and Lake Tekapo, 23 days in all.

Many of the places we will pass through or stay in we have been before but we have learned with a bit of research that there are sights and scenery we have missed on earlier South Island trips and we plan to take those places in during our tour. And of course there will be sights and scenery we have been to before and these are sure to bring back memories of trips of the past. We might even get a little bit of time to sit back, relax and take in the scenery of the places we have lined up to stay at as well.

Hopefully there will be time at the end of each day to produce a blog of our experiences during that day with some photos to match the words.

So if you have a few minutes take a browse through the blog and excuse us if we indulge ourselves a little.

If you are a Kiwi reading the blog it might inspire you to take in some places you haven’t been to before either.

And if you live somewhere other than New Zealand it might also encourage you to take a flight downunder, once our borders are open for non quarantine travel, and come and enjoy our slice of paradise in the South Pacific.

Next blog Monday 19^th April, Tauranga to Christchurch by air and then rental car to Kenepuru Sound, Marlborough.

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Comments

[KJ]

Looking forward to the virtual trip
As usual brother you have got us nicely prepared for the adventure ahead. We look forward to the next entry....