South island road trip

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).