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

New Zealand Day 11 and Day 12

Day 11- Tuesday 11th May 2010

A nice leisurely game of golf at the base of the gondola....

Then it is time to leave Queenstown.

Today we need to get to Lake Tekapo so that we can have our helicopter tour in the morning. We are so excited; our tour will fly over Fox, Franz Josef and the Tasman Glaciers as well as landing on Mt Cook (NZ’s tallest Mountain, over 3700 metres) for a photo opportunity!

We stopped for lunch along the way on the banks of Lake Dunstan.

Mt Cook viewing area located at Lake Pukaki. There is also a Visitors Centre here with some interesting information about the hydro electricity stations that are in the area. It did make for some interesting reading and views.

We arrived in Lake Tekapo just after 5pm and unfortunately the office for the Scenic Helicopters was closed so we had to make sure we went in first thing in the morning to let them know we had arrived (and pay).

There isn’t much happening in Lake Tekapo but there is this church –

The Church of the Good Shepherd.

It must be about it because that is where all the tourists were when we arrived there. Eventually the bus loads of people left and we were able to take some photos and have a look around!

After driving around for ages we finally found a spot that didn’t have any “No overnight camping” signs. There were remains of campfires near by so we thought it must be ok to stay here the night. After dinner we watched a bit more of our DVD and then prepared for bed. We had all just got into our pj’s when there was a knock on the door and a gentleman kindly informed us that we could not stay there the night. That in fact you can’t just camp wherever you like and you definitely can’t just park the motorhome in any town limits and sleep in it. You must book into a motor home park or check with the local council on where you can stay! Well this was news to us (after checking all of our paperwork and brochures we did find a paragraph stating this but no one had pointed this out to us specifically before this gentleman kicked us out of town)! So we asked him if he could suggest somewhere to stay the night and he gave us directions to go back out of town and turn left onto a road that say ‘private property’ “But that’s ok you can stay there!” What?????

Anyway we left Lake Tekapo and tried to determine where the town limits are, are they when you go past the 100kms an hour sign or do you have to travel a certain distance away before you are not ‘in town’?

Oh well, it was getting late and we were annoyed and tired so we found a road off the highway and parked as far off the road under the trees as we could and then spent the next ½ hour discussing the cons of being in a motorhome if you have to pay extra every night to stay in a holiday park or if you have to plan ahead enough to ring the council and find out where you can or can not stay in their town!

Queenstown to Lake Tekapo 257kms

Day 12 Tuesday 12th May 2010

This morning we were meant to be going on a helicopter tour to Mt Cook but...... the weather has turned nasty and the helicopter will not be able to go. The tour guide told us that the scenic planes would probably be able to take us over the top but that they did not land and that visibility was poor!

Oh how disappointing!!! First we get kicked out of town and now we can’t go on Mt Cook! We decided against the plane because of poor visibility and we really wanted to go on a helicopter!

So we hit the road again! Now here I have to apologise. I have NO PHOTOS from day 12!!! It must have been the disappointment : (

No not really, there actually wasn’t much to take photos of. The road to Christchurch was rather flat, quite straight and it was really brown and barren! There were some interesting things to see but nothing that was going to look spectacular in a photo!

Geraldine was a very pretty town with lots of tourist shops but we weren’t prepared for the prettiness and we had left the camera in the car and walked around. Bought a few souvenirs and had some morning tea!

Our lunch stop was very non eventful. We couldn’t find anywhere very scenic along the road so we stopped near a child’s playground and had lunch there.

Back in Christchurch we stopped at the Air Force museum and spent a few hours here. It was a great museum, free entry and lots of things to look at and read about. There is also a flight simulator for the kids to have a turn on!

We found a Holiday park and booked in for our last two nights in the motorhome then we drove around and explored Christchurch a bit more.

Lake Tekapo to Christchurch 227kms

Thank you so much for bearing with me while I recap our holiday! There are only two more days to go and as there wasn’t any travelling involved I will get them done in one post!

Don’t forget if you would like a chance to win an original McCarthy Designs 20” x 30” print go and check out the details HERE!

xx

New Zealand -Day One

Hello again! We are back from New Zealand and back to the real world. We had a great time and we all loved our trip away! We survived the motorhome for the two weeks and would do it again! New Zealand is such a clean country to it was easy to use the public facilities and showers whenever we stayed at a holiday park.

I aim to post a diary of our two weeks away here on the blog over the next few weeks. This will help me keep track of what we did as well as whoever is interested can follow along and see some of our photos and what we got up to. I apologise in advance to anyone who isn't interested but I will try to get it over with pretty quickly!

We booked our holiday back in September 2009, I love holidays so I get countless of emails with all of the current specials and this one for New Zealand really stood out! WH was in New Zealand when we first started to get to know each other so we talked a lot on the phone for the few weeks he was there and he loved the country and really wanted to take me to visit, so when the deal came up we made the decision to go. It wasn't easy to make as Nick had just started his own business and we really didn't know how we were going to be doing financially in the future but we stepped out in faith and booked, paid in full for the flights and one weeks motorhome hire then promptly put it out of our minds as we weren't going for another 8 months (oh and we set up a direct debit into our savings account to save money for the trip).

Next thing you know it was mid April and we were leaving in two weeks and we hadn't planned what we were doing! We finally managed to sit down as a family and plan what we wanted to see and how we would go about it. Tuesday prior to our Saturday flight we rang the holiday company and requested an upgrade to a 4 berth motorhome and an extension to hire it for the whole two weeks. At first we could get the 2 +1 Camper for two weeks but everything else was booked. We agreed to take the 2 + 1 but asked if the Rental Company could be informed that we really would like to upgrade to a larger camper and if anyone cancelled please let us know. Fortunately for us someone cancelled and we got a 4 berth motorhome for two weeks!

Day One - Saturday 1st May 2010

We flew out from Sydney airport at 9.50am on Air New Zealand. Arriving in Christchurch at 3.50pm. We were collected from Christchurch by the rental company who took us to our home for the next two weeks. We signed paper work, unpacked our bags and set off on our adventure. We didn't get far, we found the supermarket bought groceries, had dinner at all you can eat Pizza Hut and then searched for a Holiday Park to spend the night in so we could charge the batteries etc! As we got ready for bed we discovered that we had only been supplied with one lot of bedding so poor Nicholas got to sleep under dressing gowns with a jacket for a pillow!

Day two - Sunday 2nd May 2010

Woke up got ready and set off nice and early or so we thought. We forgot to change our clocks and got all confused and it was actually two hours later than we thought! Hmmmmm, that accounts for the strange looks we got as we were wandering around in our pyjamas mid-morning!

After resolving the bedding issue we decided to visit Christchurch Gondola and take a look around from a great vantage point!

The Christchurch Gondola rises 500 metres above sea level over a 945 metre ride.

The views are great and almost seem unreal looking through the windows at Lyttleton Harbour.

There are numerous walking paths at the top that you are able to access either by road or via the Gondola ride.

There is a shop at the top where you can buy all sorts of souvenirs and the complex includes a time tunnel ride that gives you some of the history of New Zealand.

We had lunch in the Summit Cafe and then decided it was time to hit the road!

Given the lateness in leaving Christchurch together with the maximum speed limit on the Campers of 90klm per hour we only managed to travel as far as Kaikoura. Even then the last hour of the trip was in the dark and I think we missed out on some spectacular views of the coastline because oft he darkness. We decided to try and ensure we didn't travel too much in the dark if possible and find a spot to stop before it got dark!

We arrived in Kaikoura and found a lookout where we spent the night!

I hope I am not boring you all with our trip and please feel free to ask any questions as I go, I highly recommend visiting New Zealand if you ever get the chance.

Thanks you for all of your lovely comments while we were away and I am looking forward to catching up with everyone over the next few days! xx