Mum and Dad came over to New Zealand in
mid-march to join us for a trip around the south island. We took the ferry
over and saw a pod of dolphins from the top deck, which swam with us for a
while.
The first stop was Blenheim, where we
checked out the aviation heritage centre. While it might sound like Dad and I
dragged Ash and Mum along to this, everyone was actually very impressed with
it. They had these really cool dioramas created by Peter Jackson (as a lot of
things seem to be in this country!) Most of the planes were from his own
collection, and a lot of them are in flying condition.
On the drive down the coast the next day,
we had to stop at roadworks a few times, but every time we did we got to see
seals lying on the rocks. The next stop was Tekapo, where we went for a walk by
the lake at night and Ash got this cool photo of the Church of the Good
Shepherd.
Next we headed on through Lindis Pass on
the way to Te Anau.
Here’s the view from our hotel in
Te Anau.
The next day, we got on a boat over lake
Manapouri, as our next destination was isolated from the road network; there’s
only one road on the other side. We took a shuttle bus on the other side and
got this view from the top of the ridge, looking down into Doubtful Sound.
We
boarded our boat for a tour of the sound, and stayed on board overnight.
The next stop was Queenstown, where we got
this view from the top of the luge track (this is a kind of go-kart track down
the side of a hill that uses gravity for propulsion – they’re great fun).
