We got off to a late start. Our Milford Sound trip got cancelled again due to weather. The tour operator offered to fly us there but couldn’t guarantee the cruise would run because of choppy water in the sound. Not wanting to spend $1000 NZD on just a fly around,…

Rained out! We had planned to do our Milford Sound trip but the rain & cold kept us at bay. We spent the day with a trip to the town centre. We did some wine tasting at a place called “Wine Tasting.” This place features wines produced all over the…

Our day began with ambitious plans; we were going to hire a private plane to fly us to Milford Sound then get on a boat cruise. Unfortunately, the pilot called to tell us that the weather was to rainy in Milford to make the trip. We switched to plan B…

We dropped off our car rental at the Christchurch airport and boarded our flight to Queenstown. We ran into the same flight attendents we’d had in our other flights so it’s a small world here in NZ. After we picked up our car in Queenstown we headed over to our…

Our first stop this morning after breakfast was the Science Alive museum. Primarily geared towards kids, the museum features a large sized chess board where Bart and I duelled it out for dominance. Lisa had fun with the science exhibits as Bart tackled the rock climbing wall. 5796 The musuem…

We darted off our hotel with the intention of having some fun for us and the kids. We headed straight for Hamner Springs. Known for their geothermally heated pools, we drove up there as fast as we could. The drive took about 2 hours but was well worth it. We…

We started our day with a trip downtown to Cathedral Square. We boarded the tram and set off to visit the city sites. Our first stop was the Avon River for a beautiful tranquil punt along the river with lovely fauna and weeping willows.5939 5950 Similar to San Antonio, Christchurch has…

Our day began horribly…first as we checked out of our hotel, Capital One declined our charge; this has been the second time during our trip that Capital One “fraud” department has been overzealous in questiong charges. We were ticked because we’ve now called them about 4 times (at our expense)…

We experienced our first full rainy day, the only thing I can compare it to is the fall weather in Seattle. It became wet and dreary all day long but we still managed to get in some good sites. Every day up to today had clear blue skies and fair…

After breakfast we headed over to Queen’s Wharf to take a ferry over to Matiu/Somes Island. The island is a wildlife sanctuary with unique fauna and animal life. The view from the top, like almost everywhere else, was breathtaking. 52295240 We had a snack picnic at the summit on the…