New Zealand Day 13 & 14 (Last instalment)

Day 13 – Thursday 13th May 2010 Our 2nd last day today and we have finished with traipsing round the country and we are now based in Christchurch until we head home on Saturday morning. After watching ‘How to train your dragon’ at the cinema we headed off to the Antarctic Centre.

Established in 1992, the Antarctic Attraction is located in the heart of a working Antarctic campus at Christchurch International Airport. It is from here that many Antarctic missions are organised. With this in mind the Antarctic Attraction is designed to bring a powerful and memorable experience of Antarctica to visitors in a fun, exciting, informative and commercially successful way. (from http://www.iceberg.co.nz/pages/11/about-us.htm) We entered the snow and ice experience where the room is chilled to -5 degrees Celsius and the Antarctic Storm blows every 30 minutes in the Snow and Ice Experience and comes complete with stunning lighting, authentic Antarctic blizzard audio and 40 km/h winds. From memory the temperature went to -18 degrees Celsius during the storm (maybe colder, I can’t remember, it was cold!)

We saw some cute penguins

Part of the centres attraction is the Hagglund ride; we had a turn on this just before they closed for the day. The Hagglund is a genuine as-used-in-Antarctica all terrain vehicle, you experience travelling across rough terrain simulated to be the same travelling conditions as scientists would experience riding in a Hagglund across the ice pack. Day 14 - Friday 14th May 2010 Last day today : ( First stop is the Go Karts, Nicholas had been asking all holiday to have a turn on GoKarts or on four wheelers whichever one he was able to drive himself. Given he is only 10 this was not as easy to find as we thought. Any way we found some Go Karts that he was able to drive himself and we all had a go. I am pleased to say that I managed to score the fastest lap and the boys had such a great time that we agreed to stop back in the afternoon before we dropped the Motor Home back to the rental agency. I refrained from having a second go (I didn’t want to embarrass them further with my expert driving skills and someone had to take photos). We spent the rest of the day wandering around Cathedral Square.

Riding the tram

Stopping at the local farmers markets

Walking through mirror lane Walking along The Avon back to the vehicle.

That is almost the end of our holiday, we dropped the motorhome off and stayed at a Hotel for the last night, went back to Cathedral Square for dinner at the Irish Pub and then woke up way too early in the morning to fly home on the 7am flight! Thanks for you patience as I recounted our NZ holiday. I highly recommend a visit if you have never been and hopefully we'll be going back to see the rest of the South Island and to visit the North Island as well one day. And for those of you who are interested some quick facts about the holiday Flights and accommodation - $3,115 Nights spent in NZ - 14 Petrol Costs - $495 Coffee stops - 18 Kilometres travelled - 2,627 Average daily travel - 218kms

WH’s Favourite moment

waking up at Kaikoura lookout and seeing the sun rise over the ocean and its glow spread over the snow capped mountains.

Nicholas’ Favourite moment

driving the Go Kart

Nellie’s favourite moment

Scenic flight to Milford Sound with spectacular views

Family memories - Priceless Hope you all have a great week!

xx